


Growing Pains

by WulfenOne



Series: Butterflies With Angel Wings [11]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 18:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12138276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WulfenOne/pseuds/WulfenOne
Summary: Betsy Braddock had hoped her daughter Rebecca would settle into her new home with a minimum of danger or resistance, but her urge to return to Mr Sinister's Marauders is too strong, and so Betsy and Warren must fight to save their new family member from herself - and perhaps find her some measure of closure in the process.





	1. Chapter 1

I watch Rebecca as she puts herself through her paces in one of the Danger Room's more exhaustive exercise programmes – a series of individual and group combats with some of the X-Men's more aggressive foes. She moves with an almost unnatural grace, like a cat. Every move she makes is calculated to bring her the most reward possible. She swings her fist round in a tight arc, connecting it quickly with the temple of a holographic Pyro, crushing the facsimile of bone there as if it were paper. Flipping and twisting her body around his jets of flame as they spray wildly out of control, she comes to her feet with steam rising off her body, as the sweat beading at her temples and elsewhere evaporates in the chill, sterile air of the Danger Room. She pirouettes out of the way of a charging Juggernaut like a dancer, the hulking monster crashing into the simulacrum of Apocalypse behind her, shattering the circuitry of both the robotic doppelgangers into broken shards, and causing their bodies to crumple into concertinas of screeching metal. It's bizarre to see so many of our most deadly enemies gathered together in one place – and even more bizarre to see them being bested single-handedly by my daughter. I remind myself that they  _are_  only imitations – but I also find myself wondering how Rebecca would fare against the real thing.  _That's a mother's pride,_  I think, and a little smile plays over my lips, just for a moment.

"How's she doing?" Warren asks as he enters the control booth through the door behind me. I smile at him and point at the dials and readouts indicating Rebecca's pulse rate, respiration, and so on. After kissing him hello and intertwining my palm with his, I wave my free hand at the viewing window to indicate what Rebecca is doing.

"See for yourself," I tell him, handing him one of the sheets I had had printed out for me by the booth's computers. "She's not even breathing hard. I don't think I've seen her hesitate once."

Warren grins. "You think we should have fed her to Logan instead?" I give him a dirty look that lets him know exactly what I think of that particular idea.

"Bite your tongue," I tell him. "We'll do no such thing. I don't think it would be fair on either of them. Although the way Rebecca's junking those training drones, Logan would probably be a less expensive opponent for her." Warren laughs, and smoothes out some creases in his sharp suit.

"You know," he says matter-of-factly, "I have my costume on underneath my clothes. Maybe I could give Rebecca some tutoring on her combat techniques?" That gives me cause to stop short for a moment, and I look at him with raised eyebrows, surprised.

"You?" I repeat, a little taken aback. "No offence, darling, but I think Rebecca has all the knowledge of fighting that she needs at the moment. And besides that, I never really thought of you as the teaching type – I always thought you'd always just left it up to Charles to be the one imparting knowledge." Warren shrugs and enfolds me in his arms, a small smile crossing his lips.

"There's a first time for everything, Mrs Worthington," he says, "and if I could beat Iron Man when I was just a teenager, then I can teach my daughter  _something_ , at least, wouldn't you say?"

"Perhaps," I begin, smiling wickedly, "but Iron Man's a lot more powerful now than he was when you managed to get the upper hand on him, remember? I suspect the outcome might be a lot different if you took him on today, darling." Warren tries his best to look wounded, and to inject a suitable amount of hurt into his voice.

"I don't believe this – my own wife, undermining my confidence!" He laughs. "Maybe I should call up Stark Solutions and have them send the old rustbucket over so we can test your theory?" I shrug, and give him a little peck on the cheek.

"Whatever you like, sweetheart. Whatever you like." Disengaging myself from his embrace, I move over to the microphone set into the console in front of the viewing window. "That's enough for today, Rebecca," I tell her. "Take a shower, get some fresh clothes, and we can all eat some dinner together, all right?" Rebecca scowls at me as the training droids lose their holographic skins, and the room's elaborate scenery fades into the uniform grey panelling that is the Danger Room's usual decoration.

"Wow. If looks could kill…" Warren begins, shaking his head.

"You're forgetting, Warren – hers  _can_ ," I say, flatly, all traces of levity suddenly leeched from my voice. "I'm still not getting through to her, Warren – even after all this time, and all I've said to her, she still resents being here." I sigh and run my hands through my hair. "I don't know what I'm going to do." Warren cocks his head and touches my cheek gently, his eyes filling with concern.

"Hey, now," he says softly. "We'll find a way, I promise. Remember that she's just a kid – she's doing what kids her age are supposed to do. She'll get over it. Until then, you and I will just have to keep showing her that we care. That's all we can ever do. It's up to her when she decides to see that."

"I know that, Warren, but… I just… I just feel so damned frustrated sometimes. Rebecca wants to go back to Essex – she's told me so herself – and I keep seeing that happening no matter what I do. I'm afraid I'm going to fail her, somehow. I don't want to lose her, Warren! Not to  _him_." Warren visibly flinches at that. I can sense that he feels my anger and rage through our rapport, and it stings him as much as it does me.

_X-Men to the War Room, immediately._

Charles Xavier's voice echoes in my head suddenly, making me curse. Never let it be said that our illustrious leader doesn't pick his spots with the utmost care. He always finds a way to inject himself into our personal lives at the most inopportune moments, although whether it's on purpose or not I'm never sure.

_What is it, Professor?_ I ask, telepathically. Warren begins to open his mouth to speak but I hold up my hand for silence. Listening to telepathic communication is hard enough without external sound. With it, it becomes damnably difficult.

_Elisabeth… thank you for responding, but I would prefer it if you were not to come on this mission. It involves the Marauders, and I'm not sure I want to put you in that kind of position at this point in time._

That brings me up short, like a kick in the gut from a hobnailed boot.  _The Marauders? Where are they?_

_Hoboken, New Jersey,_  the Professor's kindly, educated tone replies.  _They are attempting to sabotage a scientific facility there. From the readings I'm getting with Cerebro, I suspect that a clone of your daughter is being used to take point. Her power signature is quite unique – or at least it was. I want you to stay here with Rebecca – I don't want her to be left unattended. Is that clear?_

_Crystal,_  I tell him.  _But what about Warren? What about_  Scott _? Don't you think you ought to at least consult both of them over this?_

The Professor pauses. I can clearly sense the hesitation in his thoughts.  _Very well, Elisabeth._  His voice falls silent in my mind for a moment, and I can see the expression changing on Warren's face almost instantaneously. A look of horror and shock falls across it for a second, but then he takes a deep breath and composes himself, swallowing sharply.

"Betsy –" he begins.

"I'll find her," I say, before he can get any further.

Rebecca is drying her hair with a towel and dressing herself in a plain white blouse and jeans when I knock at her bedroom door before entering. She looks up and her face twists blackly. "Why aren't you gone?" she asks bluntly, and then smiles coldly at my puzzled expression. "I heard Xavier's voice in my head, too, you know. It's not like he makes any differentiation between who's an X-Man and who isn't when he does that." She gestures airily. "I would have thought you'd be with the rest of them by now so you could go play superhero dress-up with the Buckethead Lehnsherr, or whoever else you people feel self-righteous enough to pound on." I sit down in the chair that is adjacent to the writing desk in the corner of her room without waiting for her to offer me a seat, and fold my hands in my lap.

"I would be, normally," I say, trying to keep my voice even, "but the Professor asked Warren and me to stay behind to help him keep an eye on you." That causes her to throw her head back and laugh loudly.

"Oh, that's rich," she says, a lock of her long blonde hair falling down over her pretty face as she returns her gaze to me. "What, did he not trust me to behave myself without a babysitter?"

"Partly," I tell her. "And partly because you don't deserve to have to stay here by yourself. The Professor felt that you deserved some company at this point in time, and I agreed with him."

"So you decided you wanted to be the one who got to hold my leash again, did you?" Rebecca snorts. "How noble." She pauses for a moment, and tilts her head inquisitively. "Where's your boyfriend – the flyboy? Haven't you got him trained yet?"

"Warren's here," I tell her, "but he's downstairs, shutting down the Danger Room's systems. He'll be up in a second or two, and we can have the lunch I was talking about earlier."

"I'm not hungry," Rebecca says petulantly.

"Don't lie to me, Rebecca," I reply, tiredly, rolling my eyes as I do so. "Even if I weren't a telepath, I'd still be able to see that you're lying to me. At least  _try_  and get some practice in trying to hide your emotions. It's insulting to think you don't hold me high enough in your esteem that you don't even bother doing that. My God, Rebecca! Even Cable can lie convincingly, and he spent most of his youth sticking an oversized gun in people's faces and pulling the trigger!"

Rebecca smiles sourly. "Oh yes, my almighty big brother – the paragon of virtue." The sarcasm in her voice is caustic. "Now he can even teach me how to lie properly, can he? I suppose you're going to tell me that Nate Grey is a great example of how to use your mutant powers next, right?"

"Don't get smart with me, young lady," I say, immediately cursing myself for slipping into such condescending motherly tones. "I'm just trying to make the point that if you're going to be one of the human race, you're going to have to learn to do as the rest of us do. Humans – even mutated ones – lie, cheat and steal. It's not a nice fact of life, but it's a fact of life nonetheless. Truth is often uncomfortable, and lies can be helpful sometimes. It's human nature." The particular relevance of my words is not something that I enjoy feeling. Rebecca's partially-suppressed mutant powers haven't let her detect my own "little white lie" about the actual whys and wherefores of my staying behind, thanks to the psychic "circuit-breakers" installed by the Professor, and for that I'm grateful. I have a very good idea of how she might react if she were to find out the real reason for my staying behind.

The door opens abruptly, and Warren enters, closing it behind him. "Hey, firecracker," he says, causing Rebecca to scowl darkly. "Firecracker" is Warren's semi-affectionate pet name for her (since Jubilee is still in Massachusetts, he decided it was fair game), which he uses in the hope that she might soften a little.

It hasn't worked yet, unfortunately.

"No word from the others yet," he says. "Charles says he hasn't received any telepathic communication from Jean either, so he's not worried right now. He did say that we ought to be on alert to be a possible rescue party, though." That brings a tired smile to my face.

"Just us against the world, eh, Warren?"

Rebecca rolls her eyes. "Oh, Christ… I think I'm going to puke. You two are worse than One-Eye and his redhead. Wipe the drool already."

Warren jabs a finger at her, suddenly angry. I can sense the strain in his voice – the worry – and it's affecting him deeply. "Mind your mouth, young lady," he says, his voice edged with an authoritative tone I've not heard very often from him.

Rebecca smiles nastily, her red eyes flickering with triumph. "Or what? You'll throw pretty feathers at me? I'm quaking." She's baiting him – and doing it very well for somebody so young, for that matter. She enjoys the sensation of having power over us by virtue of her being a blood relation to me, and to Warren's best friend. It's not much better than before, when she was insulting us and screaming instead of talking, but I have to keep telling myself that it's a start nonetheless. She'll never be Cyclops or myself, but I can see a human being under there. I'll find it, if I have to die trying. Unfortunately, that's looking increasingly like my only viable option.

"Damn it, Rebecca!" Warren's voice cracks with fury and exasperation – and, strangely, I find myself unsurprised. In fact I find myself wondering why it didn't happen sooner. "I don't have time to listen to you badmouth me and my wife while my best friend is out there risking his neck against those  _animals_  –" He manages to cut himself off – and just in time, at that. I don't like having to keep information from Rebecca, despite her cutting and abrasive mannerisms, but it's a necessary evil to make things easier – for all of us – while she's here.

Rebecca lifts an eyebrow in disbelief almost lazily, and her next words are spoken in a much more inquisitive, less stinging tone. "'Animals'? That's a little  _strong_  coming from you, flyboy. What did they  _do_  to you?" A look of realisation crosses her face as some pivotal piece of information falls into place inside her mind. "It's the Marauders, isn't it?" Her face twists suddenly, into an angry parody of its former self. "Where are they?"

It's at this point that I feel half-pleased that my assessment – of what Rebecca would do once the secret of who the team was tackling was revealed – was correct, and half-horrified at what she might possibly do now that she knows. "Where are they?" she says, her voice suddenly sounding colder than liquid nitrogen. I shake my head, refusing to be intimidated.

"No, Rebecca. You're not going anywhere – Sinister already has your replacement hatched and working with the rest of the Marauders. You're obsolete to him – less than that, actually. He'd kill you as soon as he set eyes on you. To him, you're nothing but a failed experiment. That new clone is his baby now." Rebecca's red eyes flicker with her refusal to accept my words, and she shakes her head to put an exclamation point to that.

"No," she says. "No. I don't believe you." She begins to move towards the door, and I step in front of her, blocking her path.

"You're not going anywhere, Rebecca. The Professor asked us to keep you here and that's  _exactly_ what Warren and I are going to do." Rebecca twists her lips into a snarl, and she closes her eyes, her face warping with pain and twin trickles of thick, bright blood oozing from her nostrils. With a gasp of effort, she manages to extend a ruby-red psychic knife from her hand. It burns brightly even in the strong sunlight that streams in through the room's windows, and I can feel the strain that has been put upon her mind as if it is my own. My movements sluggish, Rebecca moves in as if she is going to strike me with the crackling knife, but at the last moment, she swerves aside and drives it right into the centre of Warren's head, shorting out his nervous system. The feedback scurries back along our link and almost knocks me off my feet. Instinctively, I stagger over to where Warren is lying, his legs tangled beneath him and his fingers flexing and unflexing involuntarily. He is frothing at the mouth and his eyes have rolled up into his head so far that his irises are completely out of view. He thrashes at my touch, every neurone in his brain firing simultaneously.

It's a nightmare in vivid, slashing colours for me as I feel its residual effects through our link – and it's infinitely worse for him, I can tell. The effects of my own knife or psi-bolt usually fade after a while if I've used it to stun someone, but I've no way of knowing how long Rebecca's version of it will keep him like this. I'm going to have to enter his mind and help him overcome it from the inside out. Holding his jerking head between my hands, I speak softly to him with my mind, coaxing his body to stop its erratic motion and return the man that I love to me.  _Listen to me, Warren,_  I tell him.  _Listen to me. There is a door in your mind that can help you come back to me, and I'm going to help you walk through it._  Warren's only response is a pain-wracked gurgle, and I begin to worry if perhaps he might swallow his tongue – or worse, bite through it – and I realise that time is most definitely of the essence.  _Shh, my darling. Shh. Let it go. Don't fight me._  I can feel him trying to help me, but his body is unwilling or unable to comply. I cut through the storm of static that his mind has become – a blizzard of razor blades ready to slice my psychic skin to ribbons – and find the key to his motor neurones. One by one I shut them down, reducing his thrashing and enabling me to get a better grip on his body. When I return to my own skull, Warren's head is lying in my lap, his eyes pointing towards the ceiling.

"Betsy?" he slurs, one side of his mouth sluggish and unresponsive, making his words run together and warping his pronunciation slightly. I smile, feeling the wetness of relieved tears hit my cheek, and stroke his sweat-dampened forelocks gently.

"I'm here, Warren," I say, softly. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

"What… about Rebecca?" he pants, a look of concern crossing his face – even with the right side of it unable to move. I bite my lip and gesture towards the door that is still swinging on its hinges.

"She's… gone."


	2. Chapter 2

Warren and I are flying high above the Westchester landscape, our combined resources (my telepathy, and his enhanced sight) focused entirely on trying to locate our missing child. By the time Warren was able to move, Rebecca had escaped the Professor's attempts to telepathically restrain her, and had taken Logan's Harley-Davidson from the communal garage, and by the time he could stand up on his own without vomiting, she was halfway to the highway and her destination – Hoboken, New Jersey, where her former partners and comrades-in-arms, the Marauders, are currently engaged in some low-rent thuggery. Warren told me I should have gone straight after my child rather than stay with him after he'd regained the ability to control his lips properly, and while that would have undoubtedly been more expedient, I told him that he obviously didn't know me very well. So here we are, the two of us combining our talents in an attempt to find our missing little girl.

It's funny to hear myself think that way. After all, Rebecca is anything  _but_  a little girl – physically, and to some extent mentally, she's a strong and capable young woman, after all – but she's still so inexperienced, despite all the information Sinister put into her head. She doesn't know his true nature, and I want so very much to protect her from him and his twisted amorality. Warren shifts his arms around me a little, to get a better grip, and I instinctively tighten my own hands' hold around his neck just in case. He smiles briefly at me and then resumes scanning the horizon, his enhanced vision granting him the ability to see a pin in perfect clarity at a distance of about half a mile.

"It's no use," he tells me. "I can't see her anywhere. What about you?"

"I can't sense her either, Warren – she must have shielded herself somehow," I tell him dejectedly. "At this rate she'll have found the Marauders before we find her."

"And we both know what'll happen then," Warren says, frowning, his gloved fingers pressing into the small of my back with just a little more bite than a moment beforehand. "Maybe you should just contact the Professor and have him do a sweep with Cerebro. That ought to help us get to her a lot faster – she's obviously nowhere near here right now."

Resignedly, I nod in agreement. "Looks that way, doesn't it?" I close my eyes and allow the gentle, flowing folds of the astral plane into my mind like a lover. A flush of colours and swirling patterns fills my vision for a second, and then I am in contact with the Professor, his mind functioning as a beacon to guide me to him.  _Professor,_  I say,  _we need your help._

_Go ahead, Elisabeth,_  he replies, his focused telepathic tones ringing in my mind. _What do you need?_

_A full Cerebro sweep,_  I tell him.  _We're not going to find Rebecca just by flying towards_ _New Jersey_ _and keeping an eye out for her, I'm afraid._

_Consider it done, Elisabeth,_  the Professor tells me.  _I'll notify you when the sweep is complete. In the meantime, keep on your present course – the rest of the team is presently engaged with the Marauders. I shall tell you if Rebecca appears there, also – her doppelganger is holding her own against Gambit and Cyclops at the moment, and –_

_Thank you, Professor,_  I tell him abruptly, and break the link. I have no desire to listen to what Sinister's grotesque imitation of my daughter is doing.

Warren notices I have opened my eyes again, and inclines his head down so that he can look at me. "What did he say?" he asks.

"He'll run the Cerebro sweep for us, and he'll tell us if Rebecca appears where the rest of the team is fighting the Marauders," I tell him. "He'll tell us when the sweep is complete so that we don't have to waste our time here, too." I sigh. "That still doesn't make me feel any less useless, though."

Warren shakes his head. "I know how you feel, Betsy," he says quietly, his voice audible even over the rushing wind, and I can feel his great wings begin to beat faster and faster, the wind snapping at the point of each long pinfeather and blowing my long blonde hair out around my face. "Hold tight," he tells me. "I'm going to try to get us to Hoboken as fast as I can, and that might mean I have to let go of you a few times. Just hang on and we'll get there soon." I can feel his body slicing its way through the air like a sleek fighter jet, every beat of his snowy feathers propelling us forwards at a startling rate. Even when we'd flown together before, I'd never known him to exert himself so much. I can feel the tension in his wing muscles, their corded fibres bunching underneath his costume, and I can see the sweat beginning to bead on his temples, his teeth gritting, and his blond hair whipping back past his temples. I have to close my eyes as the wind bites with icy, stinging teeth, causing my vision to blur with tears. Warren sends an apology through our rapport, but he doesn't slow down.

I cling to him precariously, feeling his pectorals roll and knot against my breasts, and I feel the distance between us and our destination falling away like autumn leaves. The Professor's voice intrudes suddenly, distracting me from the chill that snaps through the air like frost against my flesh.

_Elisabeth,_  he says urgently,  _I have pinpointed Rebecca's location._

_Where is she?_  I say, suddenly completely focused.

_About three miles from your present position,_  Charles replies.  _She is in an extremely agitated state of mind and did not respond to my telepathic contact – I'd suggest you approach her with extreme caution._  That doesn't surprise me – nor should it; Rebecca has been in an extremely agitated state of mind ever since I first met her, frankly.  _Thank you, Charles,_  I tell him.  _Warren and I will be there as soon as we can. I can't promise I'll let you know when we do, but I'll keep you appraised somehow._

_Thank you, Elisabeth,_  Charles replies in his turn.  _Good luck._  His voice slips out of my mind, leaving me with the soft echoes of his last words. I hope I won't need luck at all, but I'm grateful for the sentiment nonetheless.

_How much further?_  Warren's voice is tentative inside my mind, almost as if the idea of telepathic communication will hurt him somehow.

_About three miles, according to the Professor,_  I tell him.  _You should ease up a little, Warren. You're still not one hundred percent, and –_

_Would you, Betsy, if you were in my place?_  That stops me cold, and I shake my head. He has a point, I have to admit.

_No, Warren, I wouldn't._ I brush his cheek with mine briefly, and cling a little tighter to him.  _Just be careful, my angel._

Warren nods ever so slightly, still keeping his eyes on the sky in front of him.  _I will, Betsy. I promise._

_I know you do._  I close my eyes again, feeling the wind flow over my face like ice water.  _I know you do._

Rebecca is riding Logan's bike as if the Devil himself is following her – her foot is jammed down on the accelerator, and the bike's engine howls with the effort. Warren beats his wings a little harder to try and catch up to her, and I send her a little telepathic greeting to let her know we've found her.

_Come home, darling,_  I beg her.  _This isn't going to solve anything._ Rebecca snarls something – I can't hear it over the combined noise of Warren's beating wings and the rush of air in my ears, but I can guess the general gist of it when she fires an optic blast just wide of us.

_That was a warning shot,_ she snaps.  _Leave me alone. I know where I belong._

_So do I, Rebecca,_  I tell her.  _You belong with me, and with Warren and Scott. We love you, Rebecca; I swear we do. Sinister could care less whether you live or die._

_Shut up!_  she howls, her telepathic voice like nails on a chalkboard in its fury.  _You're lying. I don't believe you! I don't believe you! I don't –_

_Believe what you must, my love, but I'm not going to tell you anything different. I've never lied to you, my sweet child, and I'm not going to start now._  I keep my telepathic voice even, calm, in order to provide a counterbalance to her hysteria and rage. _You don't need to do this._  Rebecca's harsh telepathic laughter slices my soul right down to its foundations, and she guns the bike's engine even more, causing it to growl and belch exhaust fumes. I can see her pulling away from us, and I can also see Warren's face twisting with frustration and pain.  _What is it?_  I ask him.

_It's my wings,_  he says, his psionic voice filled with anger and exhaustion.  _I can't keep up with her at this speed for much longer – I'll need to rest or ride the thermals for a while; her damn psychic knife must've taken more out of me than I thought. I'm sorry, Betsy._  Helplessly, I watch Rebecca's bike draw away from us as Warren's wingbeats grow weaker and weaker. She lets us hear her laughter as the bike roars down the deserted highway. It carries on the breeze, like the howl of a beautiful jackal, as Rebecca disappears into the horizon.

We alight on the side of the road, and Warren folds his wings up flat against his back. He slumps to the ground, his legs wobbling and unsteady, and his blond locks falling against his sweating, sticky forehead. Breathing deeply, he says "I'm sorry, Betsy; I just couldn't go on."

"It's not your fault, Warren," I tell him, my frustration bubbling at the edge of my mind. "Sit and rest. We'll move again when you're able." Warren nods, and exhales loudly, kicking at the dirt with his boot.

"We should let the others know we're coming," he says. "Can you send a message ahead?"

"Done," I tell him, and within a heartbeat, I have sent a pulse of psychic energy to Jean, telling her who to expect and when.

_Understood, Betsy._ _See you soon,_  she tells me briefly, before breaking the conflict in an abrupt fashion, indicating the sort of conditions she and the rest of the team are finding themselves in at this point in time. It doesn't bode well for us – with me so distracted and Warren dead on his feet, we'll not be much help to them.

Warren sits for about five minutes, slowly breathing in and out. Then he stands and begins a kata that I taught him when I was still Asian, harmonising his equilibrium and helping the tensions in his muscles to ease themselves out. His lithe, wiry body goes through its paces with a flowing motion and an easy grace that makes him like his namesake in both form and function. He flaps his wings once or twice experimentally, and holds his arms out for me. "Come on," he says softly. "Let's go." I wrap my arms about his waist, and we leave the ground with a few gentle movements of his wings. Once we are properly airborne, he says "Thank you for waiting, Betsy."

"That's all right, Warren; I hope you got the rest you needed." He frowns, his beautiful features clouding over.

"I just wish I hadn't needed it in the first place," he murmurs, glancing at the horizon for a moment. "I'm sorry, Betsy."

"Self-flagellation isn't going to help either us or Rebecca, Warren," I tell him, perhaps a little too bluntly.

He sighs. "You're right. It won't. Old habits die hard, though, I guess."

I have to concede that he's right on that point. We fly as fast as Warren's wings are able, and eventually, we arrive near where the X-Men have engaged the Marauders. The large block of offices nearby says "Mortenson Genetics", and has been half-demolished by the Marauders' onslaught. I can see Blockbuster and Harpoon still in the black darkness of the gaping hole smashed into the east wall. Their eyes gleam out at me like snakes, and I feel a shudder run down my spine. Remembrances of their gentle-but-not-gentle touches surge to the surface of my mind. Memories of their laughter as they brutalised me crackle through my brain like lightning. It's like I'm being forced to watch myself being raped on a TV screen somehow. I hesitate slightly, causing Warren to look briefly in my direction.

_You okay?_  he asks through our rapport, concerned.

_I'm… all right,_ _Warren_ _,_  I tell him.  _I'm just… not totally ready for this, that's all._  I wave him away, and despite some initial reluctance, he understands, and moves away in order to tackle Arclight alongside Wolverine. I shake my head and find that Blockbuster has lumbered towards me, towering over my head like a flesh and blood skyscraper. He grins.

"Long time no see, beautiful," he snarls, cracking his knuckles one at a time. They each make a sound like a neck breaking. "What say you and I get  _reacquainted_  some, huh?" I can see by the telltale bulge in his costume that he is already anticipating having his way with me, and I know that he will take his time to make it as enjoyable for himself, and as painful for me, as he can. I also know that I have the edge on him in terms of speed and agility – and for that matter, intelligence too. Flipping away from him so that I come to rest a good five metres from where he is standing, I make sure that there is sufficient distance between us so that he can't get those huge hands on me – any part of me. My psychic knife flares to life instinctively, but then I realise that I don't have to tackle him close up. My time in Kwannon's body has made me prefer physical confrontation over the simpler solution, and with Baer, the latter is infinitely preferable. I gather my telepathic powers into a tight, burning ball and fire them like a magnum load straight at the centre of Baer's slow, dull-witted brain. The psi-bolt sizzles through the air and hits him in the middle of his bald head. He screams – a sound I hadn't expected to hear – and clutches at his face as if he has been blinded. Then he falls, his body limp. That draws a savage smile to my lips – it's not much consolation for what he did to me, nor will it make those memories go away, but there's a small amount of satisfaction to be gained from seeing him felled by me, and me alone. I spit at his prone body briefly, in a concession to that dark part of me, and then I am moving again, as one of Harpoon's ready-made energy harpoons sears the air in which I had been standing moments before.  _Excellently done,_  I find myself thinking involuntarily. Harpoon let Baer throw himself at me so that he could let me expend my psi-bolt on a worthier target. I am powerless now, my more aggressive psionics exhausted for the moment, and he is fully capable of using those dreadful spears to pierce my body and turn my insides to pulpy liquid. It would seem that I am going to die.

_Or perhaps not._

From one of the belt pockets of my full-length, figure-hugging bodysuit, I quickly draw a small capsule. Smiling at Harpoon, I hurl it at the ground by his feet, a puff of green gas erupting from its shattered remains and engulfing the young Inuit. His breathing becomes a hacking cough, and he doubles over, staggering out of the mist with streaming eyes. Once again I have to thank Henry for giving me this new costume, complete with tear gas containers and other delights. Harpoon took me for the ninja slut I used to be – the ninja slut he and Scalphunter fantasised over like teenage boys – and that was a big mistake. He collapses, even his giant body unable to withstand the potent concoction contained within the capsules, and his eyes close.

_Don't ever underestimate me again._  The anger and rage in my mental message to Harpoon is raw and searing, and I wish that it could burn the Marauders as much as it does me.

And suddenly, I see her. Or rather, I see  _them._  Rebecca is stood stock still, staring at her doppelganger, who is returning her glare with a demonic grin. Behind her is a vision of death in red and black – Sinister himself, smiling at Rebecca with those awful black lips and pointed teeth.

"Surprised, my dear?" he says, a trace of dark amusement in his voice. "You shouldn't be. Evolution is harsh. The weak must be weeded out and destroyed, if that is what must be done to make the strong stronger." He steps forward and strokes his new pet's hair gently – affectionately, almost. "You should have known that, when you were taken by your mother, I wouldn't waste my valuable time rescuing a flawed device when I could just as easily – more easily, for that matter – grow myself a new version of you, who would be just as loyal, just as strong and fast and cruel, but  _better_  than you are." His own nasty smile widens. "Evolution is harsh," he says again. "Evolution is pain and death and blood. You will be cast aside like the dead end you are, my once and former princess. But you will be doing it for  _science,_  and there is no greater cause in all of Nature's haphazard creation." He pauses, and laughs at his formerly so prized creation, a sound that chills my bones. "You may take some comfort in that."

_No…_

I begin to run towards them, my body feeling like lead inside. I feel as if I'm going to get there too late, no matter how fast I run. All around me I can hear, feel and see the Marauders and the X-Men. Wolverine and Arclight pound each other, the little man using his agility and quickness to avoid the super-strong woman's swinging fists – fists that can shatter concrete with a single blow. Cyclops fires a wide blast of energy at Prism, causing the man of glass to crack and shatter into jagged fragments. Phoenix uses his broken pieces to create a whirling telekinetic maelstrom that shields her husband from the chunks of concrete thrown up by Scalphunter's weapons as their searing energy bites into the ground near his body. Rogue and Archangel fly circles around Vertigo, causing her to lash out with her disorientation power in all directions. A wave of nausea hits me and everyone else in the immediate vicinity – all except Sinister, who, it seems, has calculated the probability of this happening and has protected himself suitably against it. I sink to my knees, retching, and I feel vomit rising in my throat. After I have emptied my stomach, the bitter taste of bile stinging my throat, I look up through my hair, through painful tears, and I can see the  _thing_  impersonating my daughter has already risen, and is moving in on Rebecca like a panther closing in on a blind fawn. Rebecca is still on her knees, her body shuddering with dry heaves, and she looks unable to move. Staggering to my feet, I know that I have to help her somehow.  _Rebecca,_  I tell her urgently.  _Move. Now._  It's not much, but it has the desired effect – Rebecca manages to roll to one side just as her doppelganger stabs down through the space she once occupied with a burning red psychic knife – a psychic knife that I know would have killed her outright if it had made even the slightest contact. Rebecca kicks out with her left foot as she does so, hitting her double on the side of the jaw with a resounding  _crack_  and making her stumble, spitting blood. I can feel my body recovering its balance, strength returning to my limbs and flowing through me more powerfully than before. I can see Scalphunter rising to his feet too, the rest of the Marauders still down except for Vertigo, who has slunk into the medical facility and grabbed a few more hold-alls' worth of medical samples. He notices me trying to make my way towards my daughter, and grins.

"Well, well, if it ain't my favourite Limey fuck-machine," he snarls unpleasantly, hefting one of his myriad of different guns – this one looks like a variety of energy rifle with an underslung grenade launcher, from what I can tell. He points it at me, and I freeze. Nonetheless, I keep my face impassive and my voice calm.

"Get out of my way," I tell the Amerindian hunter firmly, my hands clenching into fists. That does nothing to make him move or lower his gun. I hadn't expected it to, really.

"I love it when you talk that way," he snarls lecherously. "Really turns me on." I can feel him forcing himself on me again, the weight of his body pressing against mine and making me moan with despair and pain and hate and rage. The thought of it repulses me, the memory like a black stain on my mind. It brings the boiling anger that I have kept in check for these long months to the surface in a searing black wave of agony. No one save Slaymaster and the Mandarin have engendered so much hate from me. I let its energy fill my veins, oh God, fill me like a drug injected right into my heart. I duck his first spray of energy bolts with ease despite his surgical, precise aim. I can hear him curse as I flip and twist inside his reach, rendering his weapons less than useless. He tries to connect the butt of his rifle with my skull, but I am too close for his hulking form to operate properly. In return I hit him with an uppercut and, as he staggers backwards, a satisfying right cross.  _You told me once that you thought my 'ninja bullshit' was inferior to your weapons,_  I send to him.  _Are you still so sure?_

"Bitch," he sneers unpleasantly. "I'll skin your ass alive."

"Really?" I say aloud, connecting my heel with the side of his head, spinning elegantly so as to face him once again. "Try it." Scalphunter's bulk is unsuited to the speed of combat that I am used to, and he flails with his big brutal fists. He even throws in a few kicks that I am sure are ninjitsu-based, but they are sloppy and crude parodies of my own, and I am easily able to avoid them. Scalphunter's hands open out into flat-edged knives and he aims a chop at my throat, his intention to crush my windpipe and cause me to suffocate on my own cartilage. I slap it aside easily and parry the other hand – which was the real attack, aimed squarely at my belly as it was. I can sense his frustration and, to a lesser extent, his anger flowing off him in waves. Good. The angrier he gets, the less focused he'll be. Against a trained soldier like Scalphunter, that's all I can hope for, really.

I evade another brutally swinging fist and aim a couple of fingers at Scalphunter's right leg, pointing them towards the nerve clusters that, if hit correctly, will turn his leg into a dragging hunk of meat and bone. He tries to drag his hip around, but he is too slow, and his leg immediately loses its feeling. He staggers and falls, his knee folding underneath him. I pounce, sitting on his chest, my psychic knife inches away from his left eyeball. I can sense his fear – and I can sense him trying to hide that fear, too. Tendrils of psychic energy flicker out to touch him occasionally, causing him significant amounts of pain, but not enough to stun him outright. He grunts as they do, and I lean in closely to his face, smiling at him in the same way that he had smiled at me when he was the one with the power; the one with the absolute dominion over me. "I'll say this once,  _Grey Crow._  If I  _ever_  see you anywhere near me or my daughter again, I will kill you. I will kill you and leave your corpse for the vultures to pick at. And I will laugh as your soul burns in Hell." I drive the knife in between his eyes, causing a feedback loop in his brain that replays every ounce of pain he has ever received – every death and rebirth – over and over again. His body convulses and judders spasmodically, and I leave him to face his demons alone. He deserves nothing less.

Stepping over his broken body, I direct my attention to Sinister and Rebecca again. Rebecca's clone has her beaten, her nose bloodied and her breathing ragged and uneven. I sprint towards her, all other thoughts erased from my mind.  _She's going to die,_  a terrible part of my brain whispers, _and you won't be able to do a thing to save her, will you?_  Trying desperately to ignore it, I increase my speed, my psychic knife burning at my wrist, until I am stood beside my daughter as she cowers in a heap in front of the devilish mirror image that Sinister has brought with him. The doppelganger smiles – the same evil smile that I saw Rebecca use when I first saw her, but infinitely worse – and says, in a twisted parody of my daughter's lilting voice, "Isn't this funny? I think you and I have done this before, Mother."

Rage burns at the corners of my eyes. "Don't call me that.  _We_  never did this – you're not my daughter! You're just some mirror image of Rebecca that that madman created. I took away his favourite new plaything and he made you to replace her."

She's just as stubborn as my daughter is, however much I don't want to see the obvious similarities. "You're pathetic. That Rebecca Braddock is just a pale imitation of me – I am what we were supposed to be. She was a wretched little mouse trying to be a tiger, and she failed. I  _am_  that tiger, Elisabeth Braddock. I'll kill you just as surely as she couldn't." She steps forwards, her movements like lightning made flesh, and her fists connect brutally with the soft flesh of my abdomen before I have had a chance to brace them for the impact. Her eyes glow red and send a stinging blast of concussive energy into my face. It doesn't break the skin, but it does blind me momentarily. In that time I can feel her fists hitting my jaw, and were it not for my rolling with the punch, I'm certain I would have felt it shatter like glass. My vision clears slowly, and I am able to see again, albeit through slitted eyes. The Rebecca clone smiles a sweet, venomous smile and drops to one knee, intending to sweep my ankles out from under me. I am ready for it, though, and somersault away, coming to my feet again a few feet away, my hands swinging up ready to block any attacks she might be preparing to make. However, none arrive. She seems to be looking behind me, with some apprehension. I realise why when I sense the rest of the team is on its way, with Scott and Warren at their head. I can see Sinister's face fill with irritation, and he calls his pet back to his side. She slinks back to him with hesitation, and stands at his side, an angry look crossing her twisted features.

"Leave her alone, Sinister," Scott says, in his strong, authoritative voice. Sinister smiles his fang-toothed smile, as if he is meeting Scott on the golf course or at the country club.

"And what if I don't, Scott, my boy?" he asks. "What then?" Scott shrugs.

"We'll take you down," he says, simply. "We protect our own." Sinister sighs, and spreads his hands out to either side.

"As you wish, Scott. I have what I came for – the girl was simply an added attraction. I shall attend to her another time. You may keep her if you wish, but be forewarned – she is, and always will be,  _Sinister's_. You will discover what a viper you have clasped to your breast only when it is too late, and you will wish that you had allowed Sinister to rid you of her when you had the chance. Be mindful of those words, Scott." His discordant, malicious laughter is ringing in my ears long after the tesseract he has used has disappeared.

It's then that I hear a choking, gasping sound at my feet. I look down, and the source of it is as surprising to me as the sound itself.

Rebecca is crying. For the first time since I've known her, she is crying. I kneel down, and she clings to me as if I am her only link to humanity.

"It's all right," I tell her. "It's all right."


	3. Chapter 3

"How is she?" I ask Henry McCoy, otherwise known as the bouncing blue-furred Beast. He sighs, and pushes his half-moon glasses up his pointed, slightly up-turned nose.

"That depends on your point of view," he says, gesturing at Rebecca's charts, as if that will tell me something insightful or revolutionary. "Her charts are excellent, as always – her physical condition is not in question; she is an exceptional specimen as far as her physique and metabolism, and for that matter her control over her powers, are concerned. It's her mental state that I'm worried about – she doesn't want to see anybody at all, and she rails against my even trying to strike up a conversation with her. It's as if she's shutting herself off from the real world, as if she thinks she's not worthy of it any more." He pauses to scratch behind one pointed ear, and smooth out a troublesome tuft of cobalt fur. "Perhaps you or Warren or Scott might have better luck than I, but I would urge you to be as gentle as you can, Betsy – she's been through a lot these past few days, and even a girl as strong as Rebecca can only take so much."

"Thank you, Henry," I tell him, "for taking care of her." He smiles, and pointed fangs peek out at either side of his mouth.

"'Twas my pleasure, maiden most fair," he says, bowing expansively, and then picking up a pen and scribbling something on a piece of paper on a clipboard. "It  _is_  what I'm here for, after all." He shrugs. "In between providing battlefield reports, costume fittings, Latin refresher courses and lemon-meringue-pie baking classes." He shrugs. "Good luck, Betsy." I nod in thanks, and then walk away towards the door beside the plate-glass window that leads onto the main part of the infirmary. I recognise this part of the mansion well – almost  _too_  well for my liking; I was confined here for weeks after Sabretooth gutted me. And now the bed that was stained crimson with my blood is the place my daughter is trying to withdraw into, as if to avoid the real world. She suffered two broken ribs and a lot of serious bruising at the hands of her clone, which is why Henry remanded her to the infirmary – and I suppose that's when I should have noticed the difference; when she didn't protest, instead simply agreeing without a word. Before, Rebecca would have at least come up with a barbed comment or two, but that time, she was silent. And it's been downhill from there. She looks up at me from the magazine that Henry evidently brought for her to read while she was recovering – a teenage coffee-table affair that tells its readers how to apply make-up in such a way as to snare their perfect man, and tells lurid stories of relationships gone wrong. She looks at me in barely veiled surprise.

"Go away," she says, sullenly. "I don't want to see you."

"Why not?" I ask. I could just as easily have reached into her mind and taken the information for myself, but this seemed more natural somehow. "Why is that?"

"Why do you  _think_?" she snaps. "I treated you like crap! I treated you like crap because I thought Sinister loved me more than you did! How do you think finding out I was wrong makes me feel?" Moisture beads at the corners of her eyes, and her hands close into fists. "How do you think I felt when he told that clone to kill me? I felt so  _betrayed._  I felt like I'd lost everything." I slip my hand over one of her fists, feeling the soft, supple skin give slightly beneath my own fingers, and open it out so that I can hold her hand gently.

"But you didn't lose everything, Rebecca," I tell her firmly. "You still have me. You still have Warren, and Scott, and all the others here in the mansion. We can be your family now, if you'd like."

Rebecca's face becomes a dark glower. "Why are you being so  _kind_  to me?" she demands, jerking her hand out of mine. "I told you to leave me alone!" She shifts away from me, and faces the wall, kicking her feet obstinately. I get up out of my seat and get up onto her bed so that I can kneel behind her and put my hands on her shoulders.

"I told you before, my darling," I say softly. "I'm your mother – it's my job. I love you, Rebecca. Nothing you can do or say will change that, and I hope you can learn to love me, too. I know you must be feeling lost and lonely right now, but that's what Warren and I are here for. We wouldn't be good parents if we weren't. If you want me to go right now, then I'll go, but just remember that I'll be back tomorrow at the same time." I rub my hands along her delicate collarbones and feel the knotted tension in her shoulders easing slightly. For a moment, I think she might actually let me stay so we can talk this whole mess through.

Then, she says "Please go," and my heart sinks. Disappointment floods my soul, but then I realise there is always tomorrow. I sigh, and nod almost imperceptibly, even though she can't see me do it.

"All right, sweetheart," I tell her. "I'll be back tomorrow. Try and get some sleep before then, all right?" She hangs her head and stares silently at her toes, not saying a word. I slip lightly off the bed and towards the door of the infirmary, my footsteps light and noiseless, even in the silence of the ward. I open the door with a push of the button at its side and slip through, to find Henry standing off to one side at a workbench, examining a rack of test tubes that contain various unidentifiable substances. He turns in surprise to look at me, and his expression falls.

"How did it go?" he asks, his tone and his thoughts making it plain that he is anticipating the worst.

"Well, she didn't try to kill me," I say, with the ghost of a smile on my lips. "In my book, I count that as a plus. We'll see if we can progress from there tomorrow, I suppose." I play with a blonde ringlet of hair that has escaped from the clip holding it back along with the rest of my ponytail, idly twisting it around my finger and pulling a few loose strands from their moorings. I open my fingers and let them float gently to the floor, twinkling as the soulless electric lighting catches the facets inside them and makes them gleam. It's… beautiful. I have precious little of that in my life these days, so I treasure this for the rarity it is. Spotting what I'm doing over his experiments, Henry adjusts his glasses again and raises a shaggy eyebrow.

"Please, Mrs Worthington, if you continue to insist on dropping pieces of yourself all over my laboratory, I shall have to ask you to leave." I snap out of my trance-like state and return to the real world abruptly, plucking the hairs out of the miniature air currents that have kept them aloft so far.

"I'm sorry, Henry," I tell him absently, before moving to leave the infirmary. "I'll try and be more careful next time."

"There won't  _be_  a next time if I have anything to do with it, Betsy," Henry says sternly. "How am I supposed to operate under proper lab conditions if I'm constantly visited by women who insist on moulting more vigorously than I do?" He chuckles. "And Betsy? Do try to call me Hank in future. The only people who insist on using my given name are my parents and the Professor, and you're neither of those – unless Charles recently visited a California cosmetic surgery clinic without my knowledge." That brings a smile to my lips.

"Point taken… Hank."

Hank grins – a sharp-toothed, friendly grin. "That's better." He watches me moving towards the exit door of the laboratory and says "Business elsewhere, Betsy?"

"Yes, Hank," I tell him. "Family business, I suppose you could call it. I'll see you later. Try and let me know if Rebecca asks for me, would you?"

"Consider it done," he replies, flipping through a textbook on nuclear physics as he lights yet another Bunsen with a long match. "Same time tomorrow, if nothing else happens, then?"

"Same time tomorrow, Hank," I say, as I leave the lab to its guardian angel. Taking the lift up to ground level, I find Warren and Scott standing in the lobby of the mansion, with the guest that I had been expecting standing between them. Warren is still a little uneasy around him, despite the way that he has proved himself a loyal supporter of Xavier's dream (albeit with a few modifications of his own).

"Nathan," I say, knowing that Cable is a man of few words, preferring to let his actions speak for him. He nods to me, briefly.

"So do I have to call you 'Mom' now as well?" he asks gruffly, but with a rough smile on his unshaven face. He laughs – to my surprise; I'd never really heard Cable acting like a real human being before. "Don't tell me I gotta call Wings 'Uncle Warren', too. That's gotta be a fate worse than death." Warren grits his teeth and clenches his fists, forcing a smile onto his face.

_Behave, Nathan,_  I tell Cable bluntly, wagging my finger at him.

_And spoil all my fun? Oath, you_ do _sound like my mother._

_Stepmother, at the most,_ I tell him, laughing.  _Count yourself lucky that Rebecca isn't from the future. At least we don't have to worry about working out any chronological headaches where she's concerned._

_That's a flonqing relief,_ Nathan replies.  _I've dealt with time travellers for most of my life, and the physics of it still gives me migraines._

_I can imagine._ I probably can't, but it still seems like a horrible burden to bear. I usher Cable towards the room we have set aside for him, decorated as sparsely as he requested it be – a simple pallet has been placed on the floor, with no blanket or sheet to cover it, and no pillow at its head. Nothing else is contained within the room, except a small stand for Nathan's single item of weaponry – a spear-like weapon he calls a psimitar. He has used it to focus his telepathic powers in much the same way as my psychic knife or psi-bolts focus mine. From what we have managed to glean from Cable's brief comments about himself, he obtained it on the instructions of a friend of his, a man called Blaquesmith. Other than that, Cable remains that which he has always been – an enigma. Not even his own father  _truly_  knows him. With that in mind, I wonder why I have even brought him here – and then I am reminded that he is the closest thing Rebecca has to a kindred spirit. Nate Grey, I suppose, is closer to what Rebecca is in body, given his peculiar origins, but Rebecca has Cable's fire in her veins, of that there is no question.

Cable throws down his poncho at the head of the pallet and bundles it up so that it forms a makeshift pillow, setting the psimitar down in the stand prepared for it. He takes the gloves off his hands, flexing his techno-organic fingers lightly, and scratches his stubbly face. "I'll see you people in the morning," he says, and closes the door. Warren turns and looks at me with an expression that seems to say, "Sweetheart, pumpkin, what were you  _thinking?"_  I tilt my head and look at Scott for a moment before taking Warren's hands in my own.

"This is a very unique situation, darling," I tell him softly. "Cable was the only person I thought I could turn to, other than Scott. At least he has experience with this kind of thing, what with all the temporal paradoxes he's had to endure in his time here. Besides, he's effectively Rebecca's big brother, and that counts for a lot, I think. Don't you agree?"

Warren rolls his eyes, and looks to the heavens. "I hate time travel," he says simply.

* * *

 

The night is refreshing, and I sleep better than I have in a long time. The nightmares have receded, seemingly for good, to be replaced with hope for the future and… normality.

Something I haven't enjoyed for a while, that thought.

Warren slumbers beside me, and I wake him with a kiss, gently playing my lips across his. He opens his eyes and smiles at me. "Morning, gorgeous," he says sleepily. "Hey, I had the  _worst_  dream last night –"

"– That Cable was here, and that he was going to help our daughter reclaim her lost humanity?" I finish for him. Warren shrugs.

"It was worth a try," he says, sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm starting to wish it was a dream, after all."

"You don't like Cable very much, do you?" I say, stating the obvious. Warren shrugs.

"Well, getting shot in the wing by his twin brother probably has something to do with it – my  _mind_  knows I shouldn't be so irrational, but since when have I listened to my mind? My eyes see Cable's face, they see the face of the guy who shot me. End of story." He pauses. "That, and I saw the guy show up and turn the New Mutants into a bunch of delinquent terrorists." I raise an eyebrow.

"And we have the moral high ground, I suppose? Let me remind you, Warren, we're not above destroying things for our purposes. Look at how many Sentinels we've turned into tin foil. We're not so far removed from Cable, you know." Warren shrugs.

"Maybe that's what makes me so uncomfortable."

Cable looks like he has been up for hours when we go to speak to him. He is naked to the waist, his body a railway network of scars criss-crossing and intersecting in thick bunches of flesh. His bionic eye glows in the darkness that he has deliberately kept, eschewing the light that the small bulb in the centre of the ceiling could have provided. His body moves and sways in fluid, elegant movements which look like tai chi, but are infinitely more graceful – which is surprising, since Cable has never seemed – to me at least – to be that graceful a man. He picks his psimitar up from its stand, running through a series of combat manoeuvres with it, its blade glowing with his psychic energy as it is channelled directly into the weapon through Cable's gloveless hands. "So when do we go and see my little sister?" he says, not looking in our direction, but continuing to stab, withdraw, and swing his weapon effortlessly. I shrug.

"Whenever you like," I tell him. "She's probably up too, so if you don't want to waste any more time –"

"No, it's all right, Elisabeth," he replies, swinging the psimitar around, spinning the blade so that it is flat, and holds it against Warren's chin in a movement so fast that not even my reflexes can follow it. He grins, his teeth startlingly white in the darkness. "Getting slow, Wings," he says. "Maybe you ought to get your ass outta that boardroom more often, no?"

Warren moves the blade of the psimitar aside with a hand, scowling. "I don't need advice from you," he says darkly.

Cable's grin widens. "If you were Sam or Julio, or even Tab, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. But you're not, so I won't. You're going soft, boy." He spins the psimitar around and slams the end of its wooden haft into the floorboards with a thud. A puff of dust rises off the ground. "Maybe you could stand to learn a little more about war."

"I've been doing this since I was just a teenager," Warren retorts. The odour of testosterone in the air is almost palpable.

Cable steps up, nose to nose with my husband, his thickly-muscled bulk almost half as broad again as Warren. He grins slowly, like an old wolf on the hunt. "So have I,  _kid_. I killed my first man when I was thirteen. Can you say the same?"  _Oh, that's enough…_

"Stop it – Cable, Warren. You're behaving like children." Cable shrugs.

"Sure. Let's go."

Warren scowls.  _He's just doing that to get a rise out of me, isn't he?_  He clenches his hands into fists and leaves beside me as Cable stows his weapon in its rack and then follows us, his body filling the corridors like a wall of flesh. He has slipped his blue kevlar shirt back on, a large red 'X' motif emblazoned on each shoulder and a smaller 'X' at his belt.

_No, Warren, he's doing it because you're on Candid Camera._  I brush Warren's chin with my hand, feeling the tiny nick that Cable's blade made. It's not bleeding much, but the skin is red and sore.  _I'm sorry he did that to you, but you must realise Cable doesn't do this much, even with his father. This is just as strange to him as it is to you. Try and approach it with that in mind._

Oh, wonderful. Warren throws his hands up in the air.  _All right, Betsy. I'll give it a try, but I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' if this all goes wrong._  That draws a smile to my lips.

Very well, Warren. It's a deal. I'm sure you won't need to use it, but you have the right, nonetheless.

Warren nods, satisfied.

_Good,_  he says.  _I hope I don't have to use it, either._

_Honestly?_ I press him.

_Honestly,_ he repeats.  _I hope this works out just as much as you do, Betsy – even if Cable gets my teeth on edge._

If it's any consolation, Warren, I'm not exactly happy about this set of circumstances either, but it's the best we could have hoped for.

Cable catches up to us and says "Rebecca is in the infirmary, correct?" I nod.

"That's right. She's recovering from a couple of broken ribs suffered at the hands of her clone. She's also severely depressed, so you have to be gentle around her, Nathan." Cable touches a hand to his own ribcage, running his hand over some corded, thickly scarified muscle, his eyes glazing over slightly for a moment. Then, he is completely focused again.

"I know exactly how she feels," he says softly, and I know that he's telling the truth.

We take the lift down to the infirmary, and Hank raises his eyebrows in surprise at the sight of the hulking soldier behind Warren and myself. "If I may be so bold… why is the mutant version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in my infirmary?"

Cable steps past me and shakes Hank's hand briefly. "I was told I have yet another relative I need to keep track of. That's her, I assume?" He points towards Rebecca's hunched-over form through the plate-glass window. Hank's fur-covered face fills with comprehension.

"Yes, Nathan, that is indeed your new sister. On the plus side, she is not from a far-flung, apocalyptic future like so many of our recent acquaintances, but on the side of the minuses, she has had as natural a birth and childhood as your reality-displaced sibling Nate Grey. In other words –"

Cable nods, waving Hank silent, his scarred face taking on an even harsher look. "In other words, Sinister is involved. I might have guessed. Can I talk to her?" Hank nods.

"I see no reason why not," he replies. "I would, however, urge caution. She is still very fragile and I would not be so bold as to suggest that she is out of the woods yet, as it were. Please don't do anything that would upset her, Nathan – I don't want to have to put her back together again." Cable smiles grimly.

"Don't worry, Doc," he says, cracking his bare knuckles absently. "I won't. I don't think I'm capable of upsetting anybody." He grins at Warren once before he enters the ward. "You coming,  _Dad_?"

Warren shakes his head. "I think it'd be better if I talked to her by myself. You go, Betsy. I'll wait."

"All right, Warren. Don't be too long. I'm sure Rebecca would enjoy talking to you." I kiss his cheek and then enter the ward again. I walk slowly towards my daughter's bed, Cable keeping a small distance behind me. Rebecca looks up suddenly, and her face sours.

"What's  _he_  doing here?" she hisses through dry lips.

Cable holds his hand up before I can answer, and steps forwards so that he can stand at the foot of his half-sister's bed. "I came to see my new baby sister," he says – surprisingly softly, considering his previous mannerisms. "Something that big brothers have to do, isn't it?" Rebecca rolls her eyes.

"I don't want to see you either," she says flatly. She taps her head. "I  _know_  you, 'big brother'. I know what you are and what you've done since you came to the present. You're no better than Sinister! Why should I listen to you?" Cable shrugs.

"You don't have to," he says. "Like you said, I'm not exactly the best candidate for giving advice – oath, I'm not even that capable of giving  _directions_! Flonqing maps give me a headache the size of Waikiki." Rebecca raises an eyebrow.

"So just how  _did_ you manage to become a mercenary wanted by the Pentagon and SHIELD?" Rebecca's eyes have flared with interest. Good. At least she's coming out of her shell. "I would have thought you had to at  _least_ be able to read a map to do that." Cable smiles roughly, the scarred skin around his eyes creasing like weathered papyrus.

"Simple, kid," he says, putting a finger to his own temple. "Telepathy. I just took what I needed from other people's heads. How do you think I learned to speak English?" He switches to what I assume is Askani for a moment or two, its elegant, lilting musical qualities entrancing my daughter – and myself as well, frankly. Once again Cable surprises me with his hidden self.

"What was that?" I ask him.

"Battlefield prayer to the Mother Askani," he says shortly, twisting in place so that he can look back at me for a moment, confirming my suspicions. "The Clan Chosen always said it before we went off to war. I heard it a lot when I was just a young man fighting the Canaanites." He shrugs, turning back towards Rebecca. "I used my telepathy to learn English and I used it to get directions from people, even if they weren't talking. They didn't resist much. Usually." An unpleasant flash of memory passes across the surface of his mind. Rebecca's face, I suppose, must mirror my own – the memory is repulsive, and it shows Cable as I have known him in the past: spattered with blood and merciless in his pursuit of his objectives. The memory clearly shows that the man at his feet is broken, his face a bloody mess, and that he is choking to death, his windpipe in messy ruins. Cable notices our mutual revulsion, and he lets his head hang for a moment. "I don't like remembering those kinds of things," he says, his voice low. "I don't deny that I did them, but I don't dwell on them either." He sighs. "My life has been one long war from the moment I was old enough to pick up a gun – if I stopped to remember it all, I'd never fulfil my mission here in the present." Scratching behind his left ear with his metallic fingers, he continues "The past is gone, Rebecca. The future is all that should matter to us. I know that better than most." He shifts slightly in his seat, and gestures at his face with his organic hand, pointing to some long scars down the side of his neck that curve and run into each other like the tributaries of a river. "I got these scars in a battle with the forces of the High Lords, in the ruins of what I think used to be San Franciso. That battle won't come for another two thousand years, but I still remember it. To me, it's the past. To you, it's the future. It's my job to make sure that the past I can't change becomes the future that I  _can_. It's the same with you. You can still change what you are, Rebecca. You're worth more than the purpose Sinister created you for. We both are. We're above his hopes for us, because we have a potential beyond his obsessions _._ "

"It doesn't feel that way," Rebecca says glumly. "All that I have in my head tells me that Sinister made me for one thing – to kill mutants he didn't think were worthy. I can feel him in my brain all the time, telling me that you're all weak, that you ought to be wiped out so that mutantkind can become stronger, but then I remember what he did to me, and I…" She looks briefly at the ceiling, rubbing her face with her hands. "I don't know who I am any more. I used to be so sure, but now? I don't have a clue." Cable glances at me for a moment, with worry uncharacteristically streaking his lined face, and then looks back at his baby sister, concerned.

"We can help you, Rebecca," he says, in an uncharacteristically kindly tone that I have rarely, if ever, heard from him. Cable always presented himself as a walking instrument of death (which, to be fair, is quite a justified description), but he has never really been that open with any of the X-Men other than Jean and Scott, and even then only sparingly. It is genuinely surprising to see him act this way. He sighs, touching his chin with his fingers. "I'm not… used to talking that much – Sam and Tab used to tell me I have all the conversational skills of a rock – but I'm a good listener. Seems being a telepath kind of makes that inevitable – so if you need a patient ear, I'll be around for another few days." He gets up off the bed, and grips her on the shoulder gently with his organic hand. "It's… good to have another sister," he says, his words coming out a little stilted, but otherwise sincere. Rebecca smiles weakly.

"Wish I could say the same about you, big brother," she says, her pale, drawn face nevertheless showing just how much Cable's brief presence has changed her opinion of him, perhaps irreversibly. "I'll take what you said under advisement." Cable touches her under the chin with his metal hand, tilting her face up so their gazes meet.

"Good girl. Don't take anything for granted." He laughs gruffly. "You'd have been a good soldier. The Askani would have liked you. I'll see you this afternoon, Rebecca." Walking towards the door, he speaks to her in Askani again, making a small sign in the air with his hands. I get up from my seat, kissing Rebecca gently on the forehead as I do so (this last is a rare privilege, so I make sure I take advantage of it), whispering my own goodbye to her, and follow Cable out of the infirmary's automatic door. As soon as we are out of Rebecca's sight, Cable's face darkens, and his fists clench.

"Stab his eyes," he mutters blackly. " _Stab his eyes!_  I'll kill him…" He begins to move towards the exit of the laboratory, but I stop him with a hand on his arm.

"Kill who?" I say, redundantly. I know precisely who he intends to kill – and if the truth be told, I would gladly join him – but I stop him anyway.

" _Sinister_ ," Cable says coldly – a stark contrast to the sensitivity he showed only a few moments before. "How  _dare_  he do that to her?" His rage and his hate boil and sear my mind. I can feel him restraining them, but just barely. He tries to move away, so that he can leave. My grip on those chiselled muscles tightens and I stop him from going any further.

"Stop it, Cable – Nathan," I say. "You told Rebecca you would be back this afternoon, and you will be. I saw the way she looked at you – she was  _admiring_  you, almost. She thought you would be some kind of high and mighty messiah-figure because of Sinister's implanted memories, but then she saw you for what you really are, and she was impressed." I squeeze Cable's arm again. "Don't pull the rug out from under her feet again, Nathan,  _please._  She  _needs_  you – needs  _us_. Just for once can't you solve this with your voice, not your fists?"

Cable grits his teeth and scowls. Then he takes a deep breath and rubs the back of his neck, exhaling loudly. "All right, Betsy. All right. We'll do it your way." He turns to thumb the control on the laboratory's door, but I stop him again.

"Nathan?" I ask him hopefully. "What did you say to her before you left?"

"It was a blessing," Cable says shortly. "A blessing from the Askani'Son, passed down from the Mother Askani Herself." He shrugs. "I thought Rebecca could use it. I thought we all could."


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't like this."

Logan paces like a caged panther, smoking one of his foul cigars, forcing me to wrinkle my nose and try not to breathe too much every time he stalks past me, trailing clouds of billowing grey smoke. His enmity towards Cable has never been particularly well hidden – Logan enjoys wearing his heart on his sleeve, after all; his emotions are all that he can really trust – and it irks him that Rebecca's half-brother should be the one to help her regain her grip on the real world. Cable has done Logan some unspecified wrong in the past which he has been reluctant to talk about – most likely during Cable's mercenary days when Logan still worked for Department H – and it evidently still causes him irritation on some level. Still, that doesn't excuse his attitude in this situation. I turn to look at the squat little man, my blue eyes shining with the rising anger in my heart.

"Cable has been getting through to Rebecca, regardless of what you might think, Logan." I fold my arms across my breasts and rub the bridge of my nose with my fingers. "I've seen her smile more times in the past week than in the whole two months we've had her here. And surprising as it may seem, it's down to Nathan." Logan growls deep in his throat.

"Pardon me if I ain't convinced," he snorts. "Just havin' that jumped-up punk under this roof gets me riled –"

"No offence, Logan, but if Nathan annoys you so much, perhaps you ought to work out your frustrations with him, to his face, rather than with me. I just want my daughter to get well again. If that means accepting Nathan's help, then I'll accept that. I'd hope that you could too." Logan smiles roughly, his muttonchops bristling slightly as his face cracks into a grin. He nods, puffing on his cigar thoughtfully.

"Point taken, Betts," he says. "Talkin' ain't really my style, but I'll see what I can do." I smile.

"Talking isn't really Cable's style either, Logan, but I want to be the first person to actually get you to have a proper conversation – one that doesn't just consist of you two trying to score points off each other like a couple of little boys. Why is it so important for you to try and look tougher than each other, anyway?"

Logan laughs. "You're lucky I like you, Betts." He claps me on the shoulder, as if we are in a bar getting drunk off our faces. "We both know Cable lost that argument the last time he met Magneto, anyway." I raise an eyebrow at the little man.

"You don't give up, do you?"

"Part of my charm, darlin'."

"What little there is of it."

Logan's lined face creases into a grin. "Like I said, you're lucky I like you, Betts." He looks at his watch – an old Swiss Army model he has no memory of picking up. It's just one of a number of personal effects he cherishes without really knowing why. "I gotta go – Jubilee and I were gonna go see the Village while she's visitin' from the Massachusetts Academy. She's probably done pickin' out her favourite outfit and makin' herself look beautiful, so I'd better not keep her waitin'." He gives me a little salute. "See ya, Betts. Don't wait up." He pauses, tapping his hairy cheek as if remembering something very important. "And tell Wings he still owes me that case of brew from our card game last Friday night."

"I'm sure Warren hasn't forgotten, Logan. You  _did_  pin that rather rude note to our bedroom door, after all, and Warren likes his extremities too much to ignore it." Wolverine's smile widens.

"He knows I'm kiddin', darlin'," he says. "But I'll never let it slide if he doesn't come up with that beer before the end of the week. Not all of us have limitless amounts of greenbacks to throw around, ya know."

"Surprisingly, Logan, neither does Warren. But you'll get your beer, even if I have to squeeze it out of Warren myself." Logan chuckles wolfishly and leaves the observation booth in the medical bay, leaving me on my own, watching my daughter taking to her half-brother even more, as if her previous show of hostility to him had been simply a sham. He taught her Askani a week ago, and she has taken it upon herself to pepper her conversations with pithy, concise epithets from the books of Cable's religion. Her favourite one at the moment is "My mind is my only real weapon against those who would wrong me. My hands are simply an instrument of that weapon. If I fight with my mind, then my hands will win the battle for me, but if I fight with my hands alone, they will lose." She finds that it helps her focus for the day ahead, and so she repeats it like a mantra every morning. It gives her a reason for attending the training sessions Warren and I schedule for her every afternoon, and it helps her to make sense of what she is – and, for that matter, what she might become. I turn and leave the booth in order that I might talk with Rebecca – I'm curious as to what Nathan taught her today.

Cable nods towards me as I enter the medical bay, and Rebecca smiles at me, gets up off the bed she has used since she was put in here, and puts her arms around my waist, her hands touching my shoulder blades as she presses herself to me warmly. It's still surprising to have this happening to me; Rebecca had no real love for Warren or me at all when I first brought her here – in fact she hated us with a passion. Certain… circumstances… changed that. As a result of seeing her creator for what he truly was, I think Rebecca has come to realise who is truly her family now, and for that I'm grateful beyond words. It's been hard work convincing her to trust us – trust  _me –_  but I'm glad she's finally beginning to accept us. I kiss my daughter on the forehead and hold her close for a moment before she moves to sit down opposite Cable again.

"It's good to see you, Mum," Rebecca says, using the still-unfamiliar pet name instead of the sterile, almost impersonal word  _Mother_  she had used before. "I missed you."

That one, brief little sentence warms my heart. "I missed you too, sweetheart." I turn to look at Cable. "Nathan." Cable gives me one of his short smiles – his scarred face is not really suited for good humour – and touches his brow with two fingers.

"Betsy," he says in his rough, faintly haunted voice. The greeting is brisk, like all of Cable's conversation, but I appreciate the sentiment behind it. "Good to see you. Have a seat." He gestures at the spare metal chair in the corner of the room with his organic hand. "Rebecca and I were having a talk about what she wants to do once her ribs have healed. I think you need to hear what she has to say." Rebecca nods, and once I have brought the chair over to where Cable and Rebecca are sat, she sits forward in her own seat in order to take my hand.

"I told you I don't want to join the X-Men," she says, deliberately slowly, as if what she wants to say is like thick molasses in her throat. I'm not sure I'm going to like what she has to say, from the way her surface thoughts are roiling uncomfortably, but I stay calm anyway.

"Yes, sweetheart, you did," I say, keeping my voice at a reasonable volume. "Have you decided what it is that you  _do_  want to do, instead?" I look uneasily at Cable for a moment, an uncomfortable possibility having swum to the forefront of my own thoughts. "You don't… want to join X-Force, do you?" Rebecca smiles, shaking her head. I feel a tremendous weight lifting off my shoulders, and I exhale in relief, perhaps a little too overtly. Cable laughs.

"Thank you for the endorsement," he says, trying his best to look even grumpier than usual. "I'd have taken good care of her, Betsy, you know that."

"That's just it, Cable – I don't." I fold my arms. "I mean no offence, Nathan, but you do so many things that we can't keep track of. I don't want my only daughter disappearing in front of my face, only to reappear months later on the other side of the world. I don't think I could handle that." Rebecca looks uncomfortable for a moment or two, scratching the nape of her neck nervously.

"That's sort of what Nathan and I were talking about," she says hesitantly. "I want… to go travelling. By myself." Something lights a very short fuse in my head, but I feel that I can restrain the explosion of indignation building in my brain for just a few seconds more.  _Take a deep breath, Betsy…_

"I… see," I say, trying my best to sound and to look and to feel calm. "Where exactly were you thinking of travelling  _to_?" Rebecca swallows and looks at Cable for a second, as if for reassurance. He nods at her, giving her some measure of confidence. Still, it takes her a while to get her voice up to an audible level again.

"Asia," she says, finally. And that's when the fuse runs out.

" _What?"_  I say, incredulously. "I'm sorry, Rebecca, but I can't let you go across the Atlantic by yourself –"

"I  _knew_  this would happen," she says, angrily. "I'm not a baby, Mum! I can take care of myself!"

"Really?" I fold my arms across my chest. "Do you know anything about Asia other than its geography, Rebecca? Do you know what kind of dangers there are over there?" Rebecca begins to say something, but I don't let her speak, instead continuing as if she hasn't acted at all. "No, I don't think you do. I think you'd be completely lost if you were to find yourself in the centre of Phnom Penh or Hanoi, and I don't want that to happen to you, Rebecca. I want you to be safe."

Rebecca rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid, Mum! I can buy a map, and I can learn the languages. I'm not a complete idiot!"

"I'm not just talking about a damn  _map_ , Rebecca! You'd be in the middle of foreign cultures you know next to nothing about, and there are people in those countries that prey on girls who travel by themselves. Don't you watch the news?" Rebecca laughs, sharply.

"Have you forgotten what I can do, Mum?" Her red eyes gleam for a moment, a little wisp of energy escaping from each of their irises. "I think I'm more than capable of defending myself, don't you? Or don't you remember what happened when we first met?"

_That was low, Rebecca._  She knows I could never forget that day. It's a soft spot she exploits whenever she wants to get the upper hand in an argument, no matter how much she loves me now. At those times her skill at picking people apart mentally is applied without mercy, as if it is an instinctive defence mechanism.

I sigh, and run my hand through my blonde hair. "No, Rebecca, I haven't forgotten," I say, slowly. "But you have no way of knowing what kind of people there are in the countries you want to visit. Just because we haven't found many Alpha-class mutants there, that doesn't mean there aren't any, nor does it mean it's not brimming over with people who can take advantage of you. Like the Mandarin, for instance." I sigh. "Sweetheart, I don't want to ruin your ambitions, but I just want you to be certain that this is what you want to do, and that you know the risks. You're a mutant, and you're a very young woman on top of that. That means there will always be somebody just around the corner waiting to take advantage of you." I pause, and a dark scowl falls across my face. "Or to hurt you." Cable has excused himself quietly, sensing that this is not something he wants to get involved in, and Rebecca and myself are alone, which gives me a little more confidence – without Cable to lean on, Rebecca might just back down a little. "I'm sorry, button, but –"

"Don't call me that," she says flatly, glaring at me. "I'm not a kid – I never was. So don't treat me like one." I hold my hands up, admitting my mistake.

"I'm sorry, Rebecca." I tilt my head slightly, scratching the nape of my neck uncomfortably. "I shouldn't have called you that. But you're not exactly an adult, either, are you?" I fold my hands in my lap. "And let's be realistic, Rebecca – are you doing this because you want to see the world, or because you want to get away from me and my lifestyle?"

"No!" she blurts, without specifying which option she was negating. "No. I don't want to leave you behind. I just want to see somewhere other than here. I was born here, Mum – I was born here and all I've really seen is the lab where I was hatched, the inside of this mansion, and a few ruined buildings in Hoboken. When I was on the road on Logan's bike, I felt really  _free_  for the first time in my life. I want to see what else the world has to offer, Mum!"  _Ah_. That makes things a little easier for me to understand. It's not some teenage desire just to get away from her parents without giving a damn where that desire might lead her, because she wants to leave us. She just has a case of wanderlust, that's all. Relief floods my body at the realisation of that.

"Well," I say, folding my hands around the uppermost knee of my crossed legs, "perhaps you should consider somewhere a little closer to home? We could visit your great-grandparents in Anchorage, if you like; Scott and Jean have told them a lot about you, and I know they'd love to meet their new great-granddaughter. Or I could take you to Braddock Manor, if you wanted." I smile. "I'm sure Tom would like to meet you too." Rebecca frowns.

"Tom?"

"My gardener," I explain briefly. "He and my chauffeur Frederick are two of my oldest friends, and I'd love for them to see my daughter in the flesh. What do you say?" That takes her aback just a little. I think she's surprised that my anger at her wanting to leave has changed so quickly into an invitation to travel, although she must surely know that I am suggesting Braddock Manor and Anchorage because, quite simply, they're safe, and I know what's going on there.

"Will you let me think about that for a while, Mum?" Rebecca asks, sitting down on her bed and picking up her book – a dog-eared copy of  _A Tale of Two Cities_  that Hank brought to her, but only after I had lambasted him for giving her the magazine – her face creasing in pain slightly as her ribs give her a little momentary trouble. They're still a little bruised, and it hurts her to breathe occasionally. I reach forwards, instinctively, and she waves me away. "I'm okay, Mum, really," she says, her face still lined with the dull ache I can sense running through her chest. "Just let me think for a little bit." I nod, and get up to leave. Before I get to the door, Rebecca says "Come back soon?"

That makes me smile. "You can count on it, button," I say, ignoring the dirty look and surge of indignant emotions she sends to me. It spatters off my mind like water against my eyelashes, and it makes me laugh.

_I hate you,_  she says telepathically. I smile, and laugh again.

I love you too, Rebecca.

At the top of the lift shaft, I meet Warren, who, I suppose, was on his way down to see Rebecca for her afternoon training session, given that he is dressed only in his blue and white Angel costume, his beautiful snow-white wings exposed for all the world to see. I'd completely forgotten the schedule we had organised for today.

_How odd._

My usually impeccable sense of timing has been thrown completely out of whack by my daughter's ambitions. I suppose this is something that Jean and Scott are familiar with, but it still knocks me for a loop. I'm so used to doing everything  _just so,_  and it's all been thrown totally out of synch. Warren notices my disorientation, and concern flashes across the surface of his mind. "You okay?"

"Mmm?" My mind is wrenched back from wherever it had been residing just enough to answer him (in a manner of speaking, anyway), and he smiles at me engagingly.

"What's the matter?" he says. "You look spooked."

"You could say that," I tell him. "Rebecca told me that she wants to leave the mansion." That knocks the humour out of Warren's voice almost immediately.

"What,  _leave,_  as in  _for good_?" He is just as incredulous as I was, I think, which is a definite credit to him. "Where does she want to go?"

"She just… wanted to visit Asia," I say softly. "I managed to talk her out of that, though. I offered her the chance to go to Braddock Manor, or to see Scott's grandparents in Anchorage, but…" My voice trails off for a moment while I collect myself. "Warren, I don't… I can't stand the thought of not knowing where she is. I didn't realise quite how much that idea  _frightened_  me until now." To my eternal surprise, Warren smiles.

"I know how you feel, Betts. I asked Scott about this myself, and he told me that was exactly the way he feels about Nathan and Rachel," he says, his eyes sparkling. "He said it was how his dad felt about him, and how his grandparents feel about him today." He draws me close and kisses me on the forehead. "I think it's all a part of being a parent, babe. Don't worry about it." I sigh.

"That's just it, Warren, I can't  _help_  worrying about it. I thought I could cope with Rebecca leaving the mansion – how do you think it makes me feel to know that I  _can't_?"

"Like a mom. It makes you feel like a mom," Warren says softly, touching my chin and shifting it up slightly, so that he can look at my face. "Am I right?" That makes me smile, and I take his hand in mine, closing my eyes. I brush my cheek with it, feeling the fine, soft hairs tickling my skin.

"Yes," I say, simply, after a pause. "Yes, you are." It amazes me how perceptive he can be, sometimes.

"First time for everything," he says, with a self-deprecating laugh. "Look, Betts, you're a great mother. Anybody who lives here can see that, whenever you're with Rebecca. You wouldn't feel the way you do if you didn't care so much about her – I can promise you that."

"Do you want to come with me and talk to Rebecca about this?" I venture. "I think she'd appreciate having her dad there, don't you?" Warren nods.

"I guess so," he says. "You want I should get changed?" He gestures at his figure-hugging costume with one gloved hand. "Not exactly ideal for talking, is it?" He smiles bashfully. "Give me five minutes. I'll throw something together."

"You've never managed to 'throw something together' in only five minutes, Warren; you take longer over your appearance than I do." Warren taps me on the nose, as if to reprimand me for slighting him.

"Then I'll have to make an exception, won't I?" He kisses me quickly, and walks briskly off to our room.

Fretting makes me pace. Fretting about important things makes me sweat  _and_  pace. I can feel my palms getting almost unbearably slick with moisture as I almost wear a trench in the floor inside our bedroom. Warren has finished stripping off his costume and has found a shirt – a red short-sleeved polo shirt I bought for him for his last birthday – and is just now in the process of picking out some trousers. His hand hovers over first one pair, then another, almost out of habit. I tap my foot impatiently, and then, without thinking, I push past him, grab the first thing that comes to hand and thrust it into his hands.

"For heaven's sake, Warren, would you just  _get dressed_?" Warren thinks about protesting for a moment, but then he sees my face, and decides against it.

"Sure," he says, quietly. "Sure. Give me a second." He pulls the black jeans on and ties the laces of his expensive Gucci shoes without looking, instead keeping his eyes fixed on me. "I don't want to sound callous, Betts, but –"

I shake my head. "It's all right, Warren. You could never do that. Never."

He pauses, uncertainly, and then says "Betts, this has been hard for me  _too_. Rebecca's not exactly a normal kid, is she? I wanted to see my kids growing up, taking their first steps, saying their first word. That kind of stuff." He pauses to smile wryly. "Dumb, huh?"

"No, Warren. Not at all."

Warren rubs his eyes. "Then you can see how this whole situation has thrown my life right off-course like it has yours, can't you? I have a daughter I never saw do any of those things. I never even changed a diaper, for God's sake! I feel like a dirty cheat for not paying my dues as a parent, and it hurts me, Betsy. It hurts me right here." He places a hand over his heart, tapping it twice, slowly. "I love Rebecca, and I want to be a good dad, but this whole situation will take a while for me to get over, I think. It's hard, you know?"

I nod, one corner of my mouth raised in an understanding smile. "I know. And I'm sorry, Warren; I shouldn't have gone off at you like that. It wasn't right."

"Don't worry about it." Warren waves his hand dismissively. "This has been hard on the both of us. Better we blow off steam at each other than at her, right?"

"I suppose so. Speaking of which, I promised Rebecca I wouldn't be gone long. She'll be wondering where I am." I pause, realisation crossing my face for a second. "I'll fetch Scott. I should have done it earlier." A curse escapes my lips. "I am  _such_  an idiot!"

"No, you're not, Betts – you're just preoccupied." Warren shrugs. "Scott won't mind. As long as he's there he won't give a damn about you  _almost_  forgetting to tell him."

"I suppose so. Give me a moment, will you?" I close my eyes.  _Scott, would you come down to the med-leb, please?_

Why, Betsy? Has something happened to Rebecca? Worry sounds in Scott's telepathic voice like a bell.

_No, Scott, she's fine. I just need you here with us while Warren and I talk to Rebecca. She wants to leave the mansion for a little while, and we were going to talk about where it is she's going to go, if she decides on going after all. We thought you deserved to know what's going on._  There is a slight pause on the other end of the link, and then Scott lets his agreement filter through freely.

_Thank you, Betsy,_  he replies.  _I'll be there as soon as I can._

Scott appears in two minutes, perhaps less, dressed in a plain blue shirt and some white slacks. His ruby-quartz glasses sit perched on the bridge of his nose, and he adjusts them slightly as he approaches us at the entrance to the lift. "Betsy – Warren," he says, nodding to each of us in turn, clasping me in an embrace and giving his old friend a firm handshake with his free hand. It's become a bit of a tradition between the three of us – we  _are_  all technically family now, as well as comrades-in-arms. "Good to see you, you two." He grins warmly – an expression of good humour that is oddly muted by the fact that I can't see his eyes, despite the fact that I can feel his emotions. I suppose what they say about the eyes being windows to the soul must have some truth in it after all. Scott's expression hardens slightly, and he folds his arms across his chest, breathing deeply before continuing. "Is this something to do with my son?" he asks. "Nathan's told me how much he and Rebecca get on. Someone like him could probably influence a girl of Rebecca's age. I'll talk to him, see if I can get him to change her mind –" I shake my head, cutting him off with a wave of my hand.

"No, Scott – you don't understand. It wasn't Nathan's idea. It was hers. She wanted to do this for herself, because she was tired of not being able to see the world. Nathan might have encouraged her, but it was her idea. If you want to talk to Nathan about helping to change her mind, please do, but you ought to know that he won't do anything about it. She made her own mind up about this." Scott's face fills with realisation, and he looks a little sheepish for a second or two before regaining his characteristic composure.

"I… see," he says in a low voice. "You didn't tell me where she wanted to go. Anywhere in particular?"

Just then the lift doors hiss open and reveal the elevator platform in all its gleaming metallic glory, and I step inside quickly, the almost-sterile air inside the lift compartment tickling my nostrils. Warren follows, tucking his wings through the small doorway deftly, and rolls his eyes. "Come on, Scotty – I'll tell you on the way down."

Rebecca is sat on her bed, engrossed in her book, when the three of us arrive. Hank almost had conniptions when we turned up  _en masse_ , but eventually agreed to let us go in as a group. I think he knows that Rebecca is strong enough by now to handle multiple visitors, which is why he only  _almost_  threw a fit. Had he felt any other way, we'd have been ejected more quickly than we'd come in. My daughter looks up and sees us, and her face lights up.

"Mum," she says, waving. "Dads." She smiles mischievously. That's one of her favourite little jokes she likes to play on the three of us, and it does raise a little smile on my lips, too, no matter how many time I hear it.

"Hi, Rebecca." Scott threads his way through the clutter of the ward and reaches Rebecca's bed, where he embraces his daughter. "Good to see you again." He kisses her on the forehead, and it reminds me again of how tender a man Scott can be. It's a far cry from the focused, driven leader of the X-Men I first met, and I love seeing him this way. It reminds me that he is a wonderful father, as well as a good friend. He strokes her hair, tucking a stray strand of it behind her left ear. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know – same old same old," she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. She puts a leather bookmark into her book and sets it down onto her bedside table as Warren reaches her, alongside me. Easing herself off the bed, she stands and hugs Warren, Scott and myself in turn, just briefly. Her face takes on a more serious look – almost too old for her years – and she sits back down on her bed. "I guess Mum told you both what I said to her, did she?" Both Scott and Warren nod slowly. Rebecca smiles a little smile and raises her eyebrows. "I thought she might have. I still want to go overseas, though. Maybe not to Asia, but definitely somewhere other than this country." She pauses again. "You can see why I want to go, can't you, Dad?" She looks pleadingly towards Warren, who shrugs noncommittally.

"I guess so, Rebecca, but I have to side with your mom on this one. It's probably better for you if you don't go so far when you're this age. Hell, I wasn't even allowed to go to the  _movies_  when I was your age!" He winces visibly as she threatens to stare a hole in him (which in her case, she could actually do very easily). Biting his lip, he continues "Look, Rebecca, your mom's right. You're too young and  _way_  too inexperienced for that kind of trip." Desperately, he looks to Scott for some back-up, and Scott raises his eyebrows, scratching the bridge of his nose with a fingertip.

"How would you like to go to Anchorage?" he says, keeping his voice calm. "My grandparents want to meet you a whole lot, Rebecca – they don't have much family left apart from my dad, and my brother and me. Meeting you would be a dream come true for them." He smiles. "What do you say?" Rebecca twists one side of her mouth up and wrinkles her nose in a way that suggests she has already considered this option.

"Mum suggested it to me earlier, Scott," she says. "Don't take this the wrong way, but… your family is a little  _too_  daunting for me at the moment. Maybe in a little while, when I've had time to adjust. Tell them I'm sorry."

To my surprise, Scott smiles. "I understand," he replies, raising his eyebrows. "And don't worry – they'll understand, too. They got used to that when my dad turned up in a 'flying saucer'. Grandpa almost had a heart attack when I told him Nathan was my son, though. And I gave up trying to explain the whole thing to him after he fell asleep during my explanation of the Mother Askani." He shrugs, smiling wryly. "You take your time, Rebecca. I'll let them know when you decide to meet them."

"Thanks," Rebecca says simply. "I'll get around to it soon, I promise."

"Well, where else would you  _like_  to go?" Scott asks, folding his hands and resting his elbows on his knees as he sits forward in the metal chair next to Rebecca's bed. She tilts her head and scratches behind her ear.

"I kind of had my heart set on visiting Hong Kong, actually," she says, flipping her loose blonde ponytail behind her back, "but I guess that's out of the question now, huh?"

"Not totally, darling. Just until you at least  _look_  a little older." I realise just how stupid that sounds, but Rebecca is only physically about halfway to adulthood, even though her mind is practically fully developed. She's like someone with the knowledge of a twenty-five-year-old in a seventeen-year-old's body, and sometimes I have to remind myself of that – uncomfortable, and strange, as it may be. "Until then, where would you like to visit? Maybe Warren or I can take you there?" Rebecca sighs.

"Well, Braddock Manor did sound nice," she admits, "but I don't think I'd like the weather much." She grins, amused at my involuntary grimace. "How about Las Vegas?"

I cough involuntarily, stunned. "Absolutely not. You'd probably come home broke and tattooed, flashing a tongue stud at me." Rebecca raises an eyebrow.

"It was a joke," she says, flatly. She rolls her eyes. "I could care less about Las Vegas, Mum. I just wanted to get a rise out of you."

"Well, you succeeded. Are you pleased with yourself?" She smiles.

"Very." A flash of inspiration crosses her face. "What about France?"

_That sounds more like it._  "I think that's a great idea, Rebecca," I say, truthfully. "Paris is lovely in the summer. You'll love it – there's nothing better than seeing the world from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Just don't drink too much Beaujolais, all right?"

Rebecca sticks her tongue out at me. "All right, Mum – you win. I  _won't_  have any fun."

"Don't be rude," I say. "I'm just speaking from experience. Red wine hangovers are not fun  _at all_."

Rebecca laughs. "You've had a red wine hangover? Seriously?  _You?_ "

Warren nods, a little twinkle in his eye. "I've seen it, Rebecca. It's not pretty."

_You are a dead man, Mr Worthington._  He spots the half-serious glare I'm giving him, and pretends to be frightened. "Funny as it may sound, Rebecca, I'm a human being too. I'm just as entitled to get drunk as you are." I pause. "I just don't do it very often. I'm not really what you'd call a happy drunk, you see; I have a tendency to curse the world, Mojo, Slaymaster, the Mandarin, Kuragari, and any random passers-by for ruining my life, and it does rather tend to kill the party mood." I smile. "And since you have me and Scott for genetic donors, I'd watch yourself, my dear. Especially since there's likely to be a parade of unscrupulous men trying to seduce you." Rebecca snorts with laughter.

"Now you're  _really_ being paranoid, Mum," she says. "With these eyes I couldn't get anybody but Nightcrawler or Wonder Man to ask me out."

"You'd be surprised how tolerant they are in France, darling. Anybody with two X-chromosomes is fair game. I was approached constantly by odd little men who reeked of cheap cologne and tried out worse pick-up lines than Gambit, even after I'd been given the mark of the Crimson Dawn. Which means I'd advise you to be on your guard."

Rebecca stifles a giggle. "Worse pick-up lines than Gambit? Wow."

"Oh yes. They told me my eyes were like the stars, my mark like the sun, my hair like spun satin, and my bosom… attractive." I can feel a flush coming to my cheeks at that. The people in question used considerably more…  _colourful…_  language. I consider myself a woman of the world, and even I was embarrassed at how forthright they were. "Of course they  _were_  mostly drunk at the time, so they made very little sense. But that doesn't mean you ought not to be on your guard if you're alone in a crowded bar late at night."

"All right, Mum – you win." Rebecca sounds a little exasperated at my rather overzealous doting (now  _there's_  a word I never expected to associate with myself. I think I'm becoming more of a mother hen than Jean). "Do you want me to carry a can of Mace in my handbag too?"

"That might actually make me a little feel better, Rebecca," I tell her honestly. "A collar or a power-dampener could really get you in trouble, button – take it from somebody who knows."

Rebecca's hand strays to her throat unconsciously. Her thoughts show that she still has unpleasant memories of the locking collar we had to attach to a visor we borrowed from Scott when she first arrived here. To have to endure something like that again (which took away her powers, to boot) is something that she is obviously extremely scared of. "Point taken," she says hoarsely, rubbing her neck with her fingertips.

"Good," I say, reaching out to clasp her hand in mine. "I'm sorry to be so very blunt, my love, but I'm only doing it because I want you to be safe."

"I know," she says.

Scott steps forwards, a flash of inspiration coming into his mind. "Rebecca… if you're going to be crossing the Atlantic, Jean and I have got some packing cases that might be useful to you. They're not that big, but they'll do, I think. Unless you're like Jean and want to pack half your wardrobe for a two-week holiday." He shrugs. "I'll bring them down for you if you want –" Rebecca shakes her head.

"No. I'll come and look at them myself, if and when Hank decides to let me out of here. If ever." She smiles wryly. "I think he thinks I'll collapse and die if he isn't watching my every move."

Warren groans. "Sounds like Hank, all right. The man's so clingy, it's a wonder he ever lets anybody out of the infirmary at all. Sounds like you're in for a long stay, Rebecca."

"Well… why don't we prove him wrong?" Scott says, a surprisingly mischievous look crossing his face. "I'll go talk to Hank and see if I can convince him to let you go. He can still check up on you if he needs to while you're there."

There is an interval of about five minutes as he goes through the door of the ward to the lab area where Hank is working, and then a very vocal  _"What?"_  Hank comes storming into the ward with a determined expression on his fur-covered features, and stops a few paces away from me. "There is no way that your daughter is going to leave this infirmary, Mrs Worthington. I won't have you risking her health just for the sake of some creature comforts!" Scott comes after as quickly as he can, grabbing onto one Hank's muscular arms.

"Wait a minute, Hank," he begins, "I wouldn't ask it if I wasn't certain – you know that. Rebecca looks fine to me –" Hank stops him cold with a wave of his paw.

"Looks can be deceiving, Scotty," he says. "Her broken ribs are nearly healed, yes, but I'm still not sure she's fit enough to be moved yet –" Rebecca silences him in turn as she somersaults off her bed and executes a perfect landing, her body automatically assuming a crouched position for a moment before she stands up and taps Hank on the nose with a long, elegant finger.

"Boo," she says, with a twinkle in her eye. Hank raises an eyebrow.

"And here I thought Jubilee was the resident show-off adorned with an X belt-buckle," he mutters, and sighs. "Very well, Rebecca, you may return to your own room. But I want full check-ups every week so that I can be sure you are fully fit."

Rebecca smiles. "Whatever you like, Hank. I just want to get out of here as soon as possible: I'd like to be reminded of what the sun feels like." She gives him a little hug and nuzzles his furry neck. "But thank you anyway – I really like the book you gave me."

"Um… no problem, Rebecca." It's always funny to see Hank lost for words, and this display of affection on Rebecca's part has this same effect. "It was my pleasure. I have more books, should you decide you want to follow up on the works of Dickens." Rebecca's grateful smile widens, and her red eyes gleam with anticipation.

"Thank you, Hank – I might just do that."

The sun is bright, with streams of yellow light filtering in through the drapes, as the four of us find Rebecca's room and help her to get settled back in. Warren opens the curtains and lets in even more sunlight, its clean clarity making everything in the room a little more distinct. Rebecca sits down on her bed and stretches languorously. "That's better," she says contentedly. "That's much better." She looks over at Scott and gestures expansively. "Thanks, Scott – it was really nice of you to do all this for me."

"Not a problem," he says, shrugging. "You looked so bored and tired I thought you needed a break."

"Well, perhaps we ought to leave her be?" I suggest. "I'm sure you need to get some rest, now, Rebecca, so if you want us to leave –"

"No. Stay," she says, simply. "I want you to talk to me, Mum. I want you to tell me everything that you know about England… you and Dad and Scott." I sigh.

"This could take a while, Rebecca."

"I have time. So do you."

"She's right, you know." Warren licks his fingertip and makes a vertical line in thin air. "The home team scores!" He winks at his daughter, who beams back at him gleefully.

"Thanks, Dad." She high-fives him with a little whoop of triumph. "So come on, Mum – tell me all you have to spare."

"All right, Rebecca. Get comfortable." I fold my hands into my lap and sit down next to her. "This could take a while…"


	5. Chapter 5

The airport is bustling with a mass of humanity – as it usually is. The usual trying-to-get-out crowd is trying to push past the trying-to-get-in mob, and airport security is escorting away troublemakers. The terminals brim over with people trying to weave past each other and get to where they need to go. Rebecca is loaded down with a case full of clothes and other personal effects I pressed on her "just in case". She is dressed in a simple white blouse and red sweater, along with some black trousers that hug her long legs right down to her prim ankles. She hefts the bag again, shifting it to her other hand, and says "Wow. Why didn't you  _tell_  me this was how it was going to be?"

"I didn't want to scare you off, Rebecca. Airport terminals are unnerving even for Warren and me, so I couldn't imagine what you'd think if I told you. I thought it better to let you see for yourself." Rebecca raises her eyebrows momentarily.

"Maybe that was a bad idea," she says, waving her free hand towards what is going on in front of her. "You should have told me about this place – it's crazy!"

Warren smiles, ruffling my daughter's hair gently. "Tell me about it. Even chartering a private jet is a nightmare here. Getting the plane is no problem, but getting there…" He rolls his eyes. "So tell me – why did you choose to fly economy class again?"

"Because I didn't want to feel like you were giving me some kind of advantage," Rebecca tells him, with a little grin. "I'd rather fly with real people than sit by myself in a tiny cabin compartment. At least this way I get to see what you people see in humans." She shrugs, raising her eyebrows above the rim of her tinted sunglasses. "Right now, I'm having second thoughts. There're so many little children – I don't know if I'm going to be able to cope."

Warren lays a hand on his daughter's shoulder reassuringly. "You'll do fine, kid. Just try and keep cool, and don't get angry with them. They'll treat you okay if you treat them with respect." He laughs. "Listen to me, giving parental advice like I'm some kind of an expert on the subject. Look, Rebecca, kids are kids. They don't mean to be annoying, they just can't help it, sometimes. Speak to their parents if you have to, but be kind to them." He shakes his head. "Nothing worse than having an angry parent on your case for shouting at their kid." If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Warren was speaking from personal experience, which in itself is an amusing thought. He doesn't strike me as the type to be beastly to small children out of temper.

"I can imagine," Scott says, as he catches up to us, with a small stuffed animal he must have just picked up from the airport gift shop. It resembles a miniature lioness, and has beautifully embroidered brown eyes on its plush, velvety-furred face. "You don't know how many times I've wanted to reprimand you for shouting at my boy." He ignores Warren's bemused smile and holds out the toy to Rebecca, who takes it with a little hesitation, as if she is unsure of why he has given it to her.

"Scott… thank you," she says softly, as she tucks the toy under her arm, kissing her "uncle" on the cheek. He flushes visibly, his cheeks almost going the same colour as his glasses.

"Just something to keep you company on the flight," he says. "I thought it suited you."

Rebecca's expression brightens, suddenly, her face filling with realisation. "I'm sure this'll help me keep those kids away, right, Dad?"

Warren shrugs. "Maybe it'll keep 'em  _quiet_ , firecracker, but I don't know about keeping them  _away._  I'd only use that in an emergency, if I were you. You might find yourself swamped by them all wanting to pet it." He gives Scott an "A- _ha!"_  type of look, as if to jokingly point a flaw in Scott's gift, and grins when Scott's face falls. I can tell he hadn't considered that particular scenario. Warren claps him on the shoulder with gusto before he can sink too far, though. "Don't worry about it, Scott – that's a worst-case scenario. It's a great present, right, Rebecca?"

Rebecca nods vigorously. "Absolutely, Scott. I love it." She hugs her "uncle" tightly in gratitude, and picks up her bags again, sorting through the wad of documents she has brought with her to find her boarding pass. "We should get moving," she says, looking at the ticket. "My flight leaves in less than an hour. I don't want to be late."

"The luggage ramps are over there, Rebecca," I say, pointing off to my right. "Perhaps we should get rid of your bags first, and then we can worry about getting you on afterwards, all right?" After a few seconds' thought, Rebecca nods her assent and we move, as a group, over to where the baggage racks are waiting. Rebecca lifts her case onto them and watches as it disappears into the nether regions of the airport that lie beyond. She adjusts the strap of her handbag and juggles the lioness for a moment before straightening.

"That was… easy," she says, with a wry little mile. "What next?"

"How about we go and get ourselves something to drink?" I suggest. "You must be parched – and I haven't had a cup of tea in hours." I turn to the two men. "Would you excuse us? I'd like to talk to Rebecca in private, if I may."

Warren and Scott look at each other briefly. "Sure," Warren says briskly. "Scott and I are due a beer each, I think. How long are you going to be?"

"Let's meet back here in half an hour. That ought to give us all time enough to get some refreshment."

Rebecca and I make our way towards the airport cafeteria, where I order a cup of plain tea and Rebecca sips a small orange juice. She hasn't acquired a taste for sugary soft drinks yet, but I suppose that will come, with time. In the meantime, she seems happy enough with something natural, which I think I ought to be grateful for. "Looking forward to leaving?" I ask. I realise, as soon as I've said it, that it's a fairly redundant question, but something about this whole situation renders me unable to think up anything better. Rebecca tilts her head and swills some orange juice around in her mouth a little before swallowing it.

"Yes," she says, finally. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh," I say, pausing slightly. "No reason."

"Come on, Mum." She finishes the last of her orange juice and throws the paper cup into the nearest bin with unerring accuracy. "Something's bothering you. I don't have to be a telepath to see that."

"I'll be honest with you, Rebecca," I begin, "I'm not one hundred percent comfortable with this whole thing. But this is what you want to do, and I accept that. I'm just having a hard time adjusting to being a mother hen, that's all."

Rebecca laughs out loud, and covers her mouth with her hand as a long lock of her blonde hair falls in front of her face. "I'm sorry, Mum," she says, when her laughter has died down and people have stopped gawking at her stupidly, "but in all the time I've known you, 'mother hen' was probably the last thing I'd have described you as. To tell you the truth, that sounds more like Aunt Jean or Ororo. You've never come across that way to me." She tucks the long errant strand of hair back behind her ear and takes my hand, squeezing it hard. "I'll take care, Mum, I promise." She brings my clasped hand to her lips and kisses it gently. "I promise."

"Thank you, button," I say, with a little smile on my face. "I really appreciate it." She glares at me, but only half-seriously.

"Stop calling me that," she says in mock-irritation. "I'm just about to fly to another country, Mum. I don't need to be treated like a toddler."

"I know, Rebecca. I know. But you wait until you have your first child – I guarantee you'll be doing exactly the same."

"Not when they're my age, I won't."

"Well, button, you  _are_  technically only a baby, so I think I'm perfectly justified." She fumes quite nicely at that – it's an indisputable point, and one that sometimes bogs Rebecca down in fits of maudlin sentimentality. Right at this moment, however, it's something that I can use to get a smile out of her, however grudgingly.

"Ha, ha," she says, sticking her tongue out at me defiantly. "Very funny."

"But very true, Rebecca." I squeeze her hand a little harder. "I'll be here if you need me, my darling. If you want to talk, then I'll be just a phone call away, all right?" Rebecca nods, just slightly.

"All right, Mum," she says with a wry little smile. "I'll call you as soon as I get there. Anything to stop you worrying about me." She looks at her watch. "Hey, shouldn't we be making a move? Dad and Scott will be wondering where we've got to." She shows me the time, and I finish my tea quickly, standing up and leaving a tip for our waitress.  _Time to get this over with…_

Scott and Warren are waiting for us in the departure area, their faces a little more flushed than before, and their minds a little more befuddled than usual. I start to wonder if perhaps they've had more than the proposed one glass of beer, when Scott speaks and puts that fear to rest. "Ready to go?" he asks Rebecca, who nods silently and flashes her boarding pass with a little smile.

"Yeah," she says. "Might as well make a clean break – I'm no good at long goodbyes." She raises her eyebrows. "Well, actually I haven't had that much practice. But you know what I mean." She scratches her temple and rubs at her eyes in an almost embarrassed fashion.

"We do," Warren says, quickly, moving forwards to embrace his daughter. He presses her head to his shoulder and strokes her long blonde hair tenderly. "Gonna miss you, squirt," he continues. "I love you."

"Love you too, Dad," she replies, kissing him on the cheek. Then she turns to Scott and slips her arms around him gently, pressing herself to him.

Awkwardly, Scott returns her embrace, and hesitantly kisses her on the cheek. "See you soon, Rebecca," he says slowly, growing a little more comfortable after a few seconds. "Have a good time." Rebecca squeezes him affectionately and smiles at him. It strikes me, now more than ever, just how beautiful she is.

_You don't know what you've got till it's gone,_  a part of my mind says sardonically. Funnily enough, I'm inclined to agree. I knew that this would be hard; I just didn't realise exactly how hard until this moment. Rebecca turns to me and takes off her sunglasses so that I can see her wonderful red eyes. She puts the glasses into their case, which hangs loosely at her belt and stands squarely in front of me, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. "Well, this is it," I say hoarsely.

"Yes," she replies. "Looks that way, doesn't it?" I can see the emotion in her face without needing to feel it through my powers. It's raw and painful, and I can tell that this is as hard for her as it is for me – which, when you consider how much she despised me when I first met her, is quite an achievement.

Warren and Scott have taken a few respectful steps back so that this moment is between my daughter and me, and no one else. For that, I'm grateful. I open my mouth to say something, but my voice refuses to respond, so I simply hug Rebecca as hard as I can, letting my emotions pour forth that way instead. Rebecca returns the embrace, and just for a moment, I imagine that I can feel her tears soaking into my blouse. "I'll be back soon, Mum," she says hoarsely, wiping at her eyes with the back of a hand. "Try not to go all to pieces while I'm gone." The joke is weak, but I'm glad for any and all attempts at humour at this point.

"I'll bear that in mind," I say softly. Then, a little smile crossing my lips, I continue "Try and behave yourself while I'm not there to slap you on the wrist."

Rebecca laughs. "It'll be a stretch, but I think I can manage it." She tilts her head a little and takes a deep breath. "Thank you for letting me go, Mum. This means so much to me."

"I know it does, button," I whisper. "I hope you enjoy the trip."

"Me too." The tannoy announces that boarding has begun for Rebecca's flight, and she looks up suddenly, instinctively clutching her boarding pass a little tighter. I sigh.

"Go on," I say. "You'd better go. They'll leave without you."

Rebecca nods. "I guess so," she agrees. She gestures with her head towards the boarding gate. "Walk with me?"

"Why not?" I say softly. I slip my hand into hers and squeeze it tightly. "Come on, button."

The boarding gate is busy, full of holidaymakers walking in pairs and in groups towards the sloping tunnel that will allow them access to the airliner destined for Paris. Before we get there, Rebecca turns to me and says, "This is it – wish me luck."

"If you needed luck, I'd give it to you," I say matter-of-factly. "You're a Braddock. You don't need luck – we never have. We've always had magic instead." I smile. "It's about as reliable as luck, but it sounds a lot better, don't you think?" Kissing Rebecca softly on the forehead, I tell her "Goodbye, darling. Come back soon."

"G'journey, Mum," Rebecca says, indulging her knowledge of Askani again.

I pause for a moment and then return the sentiment with a small smile. "G'journey, Rebecca."

And then she has disappeared into the gaping maw of the boarding tunnel, and I am alone. Warren approaches me from the safe distance he had been standing at along with Scott, and puts his hand on my shoulder gently.

"You okay?" he asks, even though he must be feeling my emotions through our link.

"No, Warren, I'm not," I say, just to drive the point home, my eyes wet with moisture. My voice, by contrast, is dry and cracked, and sounds as hoarse as if I have swallowed a box of sand. "I think I'm beginning to see what Scott feels like whenever Cable or Rachel disappears for months on end." Warren laughs softly – a sad little sound that has no real humour in it.

"Don't worry, Betts," he says. "She'll be back soon. She's a good kid – she'll take care of herself."

"That's what I'm afraid of, Warren – what if she decides she doesn't need me any more?"

Scott shakes his head. "She'll never stop needing you, Betsy. Take it from one who knows – even when they're grown-up and out of your sight for most of the time, they'll still need you. All you can do is be there for them when they realise that for themselves." He shakes his head, a broad grin spreading across his face. "If someone like Nathan can do it, Rebecca should have no trouble at all." That brings a little smile to my own lips.

"I hope you're right, Scott. I dearly hope so."


End file.
